Bill's 80th birthday celebrations

Bill, our Musical Director, was 80 this year. We celebrated his birthday (early since he was going to be in Japan on the day!) with a summer rally at which we played a new piece we commissioned. Here are the report from Reverberations on the rally and Alan Hartley's address at the HRGB AGM.

Musical Director's Birthday Surprise

Bill Butler, Musical Director of Thatcham's Barfield Handbell Ringers, received an early birthday gift on Saturday 22 May when the team surprised him with the performance of a piece of music they had commissioned to celebrate his 80th birthday in August.

Call of the Bells was composed by Sandra Winter and she conducted the performance during a rally organised by Barfield at Park House School, Newbury attended by Alan and Margaret Hartley and 135 ringers representing 17 teams from the South-East Region. Bill's son, Richard, and daughter, Alison, were also there to enjoy the surprise and to see Bill presented with a specially bound copy of the music.

This was Bill's second birthday surprise as, at the National Rally in April, he was awarded Honorary Life Membership of HRGB in recognition of his considerable contribution over many years to both handbell and tower bell ringing.

Dianne Rogers

Honorary Life Member: Bill Butler

At the AGM at the National Rally, on the proposal of the National Executive Committee and the acceptance of the members present, a long-standing member of HRGB was made an Honorary Life Member (HLM). We had received an extensive proposal for this recognition and I will refer to that later, but first I think it is important to mention that the award of HLM is not just for services to HRGB. Our rules state that HLM status shall be awarded "for meritorious activities in the field of handbell tune ringing". Our recipient has been a supporter of HRGB for 40 years, has organized events, attended national and international events, and presented workshops at all levels. But alongside all these activities he has found the time to gain a worldwide reputation for knowledge of the origins and history of handbells, and has also given time to teaching handbell tune ringing to aspiring ringers. For all this work and for meritorious services to handbell ringing, this year's recipient is Bill Butler.

Bill first rang tunes on handbells in 1949 when he and his brother-in-law entertained at parties playing four-in-hand; and from 1950 to 1958, he assisted in forming school teams of handbell ringers. When he moved to Thatcham (Berkshire), he discovered that St MAry''s Church had a set of sixteen handbells, made by James Shaw of Bradford, which were purchased by the Thatcham ringers to practice change ringing. This inspired Bill to form the Barfield Handbell Ringers in 1965; the original six members were drawn from his fellow tower bell ringers and they met once a week at home, using the church set of bells to practice tune ringing. Under Bill's leadership, Barfield has grown to its present happy, successful team of 16 members and the standards of ringing it achieves are a tribute to his hard work and enthusiasm.

Over the years, Bill built up his own set of five chromatic octaves of bells plus three larger bass bells - the largest being 32G (G2). He was instrumental in getting the church set augmented to two and a half chromatic octaves, and the current team uses these in conjunction with Bill's set. He has developed techniques and incorporated Belleplates, handchimes and several styles of handbell ringing to give variety to the team's performances. Under his directorship, the team has performed for many hundreds of people in schools, residential homes, clubs, churches etc., has helped to raise money for charities, bell funds and churches, and has taken part in competitions at arts festivals in various centres. His patient encouragement and imaginative choice of music make ringing under his direction especially enjoyable.

Bill's team joined HRGB in 1970 as team No. 158. Since then, the team has attended many national and regional rallies around the UK and Bill has also attended many international handbell symposia.

Based on his extensive collection of historic handbells, Bill has lectured on the history of handbells both nationally and internationally. He is also the author of Musical Handbells; the result of thirty-five years of research, it is the first comprehensive history of musical handbells and their founders and is regarded as the definitive work on the subject. He has donated the collection of historic handbells, from which he researched his textbook, to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to form the basis of a museum.

Bill has initiated residential courses on bell ringing at Easthampstead Park College, Fittleworth College and Denman College (the Women's Institute training college near Abingdon), where he has taught for over twenty years. He has also responded willingly and enthusiastically to many requests over the years for assistance and advice from new and/or inexperienced teams - helping and encouraging them to set outon the path to enjoyable handbell ringing.

Now in his 80th year, Bill's enthusiasm for, and involvement in, all forms of bell ringing activities is undiminished. As many will know, Bill is also enthusiastically involved with tower bell ringing, but we will not hold that against him! What we do know is that Bill has always been and remains enthusiastic, supportive, and is a worthy recipient of Honorary Life Membership of HRGB.

Alan Hartley
Chairman, HRGB