Books by Barrie Charles

Church bells stir emotions. A glorious peal of bells at a wedding awakes feelings of joy, while the slow tolling of a heavy bell speaks of sadness and death. Such sounds have echoed across the fields around Cholsey, a typical English village near Oxford, for a thousand years. This book follows the development of ringing from the first monastic community in Saxon times to the present day.In olden days bells were blessed with magical powers, able to dispel storms and drive away evil spirits. More recently they have become powerful musical instruments where a thousand different tunes are sounded by skilled players using the art of change ringing.Written for both experienced ringers and those who know nothing of the craft, this book follows the development of ringing from a monastic community in Anglo-Saxon times to the present day.

What was life really like in days gone by? What did local people gossip about after church or in the alehouse? As today, the news and scandal centred on local crimes, personal disasters and the external changes that would affect lives. This book features some of the untold stories of the people and events concerned. They range from the spat between the vicar and his clerk in 1819, to the decimation of local men in the Great War a hundred years later. Most of the crime was minor, but the village also saw assault, rape, arson, infanticide and manslaughter. Even more common was the personal tragedy arising from sudden death, whether by disease, accident or suicide. Some of those who committed crimes were desperate, while others were more a source of gossip, such as the curate who committed adultery with the schoolmistress and absconded from the village after running up gambling debts. These and many other events are related through the fascinating personal stories of our predecessors.