Here at the Old North Berks Branch of the ODG, we try to fit in a young ringers’ outing in every school holiday. It’s always difficult to find a date in the Christmas holiday – too busy before Christmas, family’s go away between Christmas and New Year and after New Year we are lucky if we can fit in one day before all the young ringers go back to school.

We met at Radley, just south of Oxford on Wednesday 2 January 2019. It has a light ring of six bells, rung from a generously sized balcony at the west end of the church.We were glad to have thirteen ringers under the age of twenty plus six adult ringers and four parents, two of whom ring. It was quite crowded! The youngsters did most of the ringing, ranging from rounds to Plain Bob Minor and Grandsire Doubles.

We split the young people into two groups. Half of them went to the Church Rooms next door where they enjoyed trying a variety of table top games including Jenga, Dominoes, Connect 4, Rummikub and card games. The other half rang carols on handbells. Then refreshments including Daphne’s famous lemon drizzle cake and pizzas were served, before the two groups swapped activities for another half an hour.There was a lot of hilarity, with the construction of a miniature Stonehenge out of dominoes. And Paul took some lovely photos.

It was a good way to spend the last afternoon of the school holidays!

Susan Read, Abingdon