In the tower we often welcome visitors to our practices, mostly they are ringers from nearby towers and occasional ringers from farther afield who happen to be working or visiting relatives in the area. But we recently had a flying visit from much farther away – Bulgaria.
She wasn’t a complete stranger, in fact she was a former ringer at All Saints. Penka Kasarova lived and worked in Bulgaria, but she watched a lot of British television including Midsomer Murders. When she saw Ring Out Your Dead, the episode about a band of bellringers being bumped off one by one ahead of an important ringing competition, she was fascinated by the ringing. After she retired she moved to live near her daughter in Wokingham and decided that she would like to learn to ring.
She progressed well and became a reliable member of the band, ringing her first quarter peal in the summer of 2018. Sadly her ringing career was interrupted shortly afterwards when she returned to Bulgaria to be near her elderly mother. Since then she has kept in touch with the ringers at All Saints, and taken an interest in what we were doing.
In November she paid a flying visit to her daughter and found time to say hello to us during a ringing practice. She also brought a large bag of banitsa, a Bulgarian speciality, freshly cooked by her daughter.
John Harrison (November 2024)
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