Tower grabbing : Graham Nabb

An interview with Graham Nabb

In this episode Graham Nabb introduces Fun with Bells podcast host Cathy Booth to one of the most English of pursuits – tower grabbing. Graham is the ideal guide to the uninitiated, having notched up the amazing total of 5785 towers to date.

Rather like the twitchers of the bird watching world, keen tower grabbers are always on the look out for the openings of rare towers that they’ve never rung at. If you’re the collecting type then this is the podcast for you as Graham is full of tips on the best way to plan and record your tower grabs.

However, it’s not all about the thrill of the chase for Graham as he also tells Cathy all about the development of the Association of Ringing Teachers and the huge satisfaction that comes from teaching and developing new ringers.

Whatever your stage of ringing this is the perfect podcast for you – you won’t help but smile at Graham’s huge enthusiasm, great advice and his fantastic ringing stories.

About Graham Nabb

Graham has been ringing for 55 years having learnt at Cossington in Somerset. He moved to Southampton in 1970, Romsey in 1977, Congresbury (Somerset) in 1981 and the Birmingham area in 1992 finally Kineton in Warwickshire in 2006.

Graham’s career was in Insurance, initially in the claims area and then Management retiring early in 2000.

Graham’s ringing mentor was a keen tower grabber in the south west and he caught the bug and has now rung at almost all the ringable towers in the UK as well as some in Canada, USA and Australia.

From very early on he was keen to see bells restored and to teach people how to ring. Most recently Graham has been influential in restoring a number of towers locally and has run a ringing centre doing a lot of teaching.

Graham rings many Quarter peals – almost all to help develop other people – and has rung a total of 2350. He has rung about 370 peals.

Links

• Dove’s guide: https://dove.cccbr.org.uk
• The ART website http://ringingteachers.org

Top five takeaways

• There are around 6000 ringable towers in the UK, so get out and about and see how many you can ring at.
• Dove’s Guide is a great source of information about towers – why not use it to keep a record of the towers that you have rung at
• If you can ring why not consider going on an ART course to learn to teach – it’s immensely satisfying. Find out more on the ART website
• ART is also a great place for new ringers to find out more – there’s the website, videos, booklets and all sorts of resources to help you learn.
• Yes, some of the bells at other towers might be a bit rough, but getting out and about will help improve your bell handling no end.

Ask the Expert

Pip Penney answered the following question in this episode:

Sarah: “I’ve got my first quarter peel coming up shortly. In practice and Sunday Service we only ring for short bursts of time. Have you any tips for maintaining focus and technique for longer periods of ringing?”