I was a bellringer from about the age of 13 - you don’t have to be really strong to do it. I did it for about 7 years or so.

There were 8 bells, and there might have been 8 people or more, at Otley Parish Church. And once or twice we actually went up on the roof of the tower, where you could see all the way around Otley – we weren’t supposed to be up there! But you could get up there through a door, through a hatch.

For things like Remembrance Day they used to half muffle the bells, so you could only hear half the time as the bell rang. On one side the clapper would hit the bell, but on the other side it had a sort of leather pouch over it, so it hit the bell but it was a very dull thud. When the Queen died they probably did the same thing, and for funerals.

Occasionally we did weddings, but not very often. We used to get paid a guinea, just for a wedding – we didn’t get paid otherwise. But mostly you rang them on a Sunday, for the Sunday services, and we’d practice perhaps one day or one evening a week.