Bell-ringers in Blackburn prepare to honour their fallen colleagues

No fewer than 19 members of the Lancashire Association of Change Ringers gave their lives on the battlefields of France and Belgium during the conflict.

And the current chapter at Blackburn Cathedral are aiming to do their comrades proud as part of Battle's Over, the national tribute to the fallen on November 11.

At dawn, 1,000 pipers will play a traditional lament but the main ceremonies are planned for later in the day.

Once the Last Post has been sounded just before 7pm, by a thousand buglers up and down the land, an equivalent number of beacons will be lit nationwide, before the bell-ringers chime in and then town criers recreate the declaration of 'peace', 100 years on.

An appeal was issued earlier this year by the Blackburn collective for fresh blood and half a dozen answered the call.

Ian Fowler, deputy captain, said the more experienced hands have been putting them through their paces.

He added: "So far some of the learners are ringing a bell by themselves, with an instructor stood nearby.

"Others are up to only controlling one end of the bell rope, either holding the 'tail end' of the rope and so just pulling the bell rope at tail stroke, others are controlling the 'sally' (the fluffy bit of the rope).

"This is slightly more difficult as it involves catching the sally as it rises, then pulling it back downward and letting go to enable the bell to swing back, pull the rope back up so that the process can start again."

In the tower at the cathedral there are two plaques, placed in memory of two groups of ringers.

The first commemorates Henry Walker, Frank Billows, Thomas Wilson, Fred Wilson, Joseph Wilson and Harry Anderton, tower ringers who were called up and served in different regiments.

But a second remembers the 19, from Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley, Clitheroe, Colne, Church, Hoddlesden, Mytton, Rishton and Whalley, who never made it home.