My sister has a little bell which she uses to summon us all to table whenever we are lunching at hers. I am forever borrowing it because I simply love the tintinnabulation (don’t you just love this word?) of bells.
I am writing this on New Year’s Eve, which is probably why I am musing about bells. I am not enamoured by the ado and flurry furore around New Year’s Eve celebrations, but I like one thing: the church bells pealing at around 7pm as the last Mass of the year comes to an end and the Te Deumis sung for good luck. The joyful sound of bells – especially when heard from the cosy comfort of the living room – warms up the soul.
The contemporary English writer A. N. Wilson says that “as aural experiences go, church bells are like Chanel suits: a timeless classic”. They are so ancient that they act as a kind of “gentle caress from history, easing you back to simpler times”.
How absolutely true that is. If I close my eyes when church bells are ringing, I can easily imagine my grandmother as a child walking past the very same church with her parents and grandparents.
Do try it, when, say, you are in front of St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta: you can conjure Gerolamo Cassar striding across the parvis, with a fluttering cape and architectural plans in his hand; or Napoleon standing in the corner, hand in chest pocket, giving orders to his men to ransack the place.
The good thing about having so many churches in Malta is that it equates to a great number of bells and consequently they are a soundtrack to our life in the village communities
I mostly love how different sounds of bells appeal differently to the heart. The loud dong of a single gong, for example, is grave and serious and says ‘here-I-am-this-is-it’. The fast-paced multiple pealing of bells says ‘Hurrah! Congratulations and celebrations’. Then there is the mournful bell on Friday at 3pm.
When we were little, at the sound of this clang, my mother used to stop my sister and myself from whatever we’d be doing (usually kicking each other under the table) and remind us to make the sign of the cross and say the Credo. I am not sure why, come to think of it, but to this day, I still stop and pause whenever I’m anywhere and recognise this forlorn ringing – in a very quirky way, it is like the church clock becomes music for the heart.
The good thing about having so many churches in Malta is that it equates to a great number of bells and consequently they are a soundtrack to our life in the village communities. And I realise now that whenever I have moved houses in Malta and abroad I always felt safest when close to the chimes of bells.
I still, to this day, wake up to the sound of bells, then count the strikes to calculate the time and work out whether I can possibly steal five more minutes in bed.
But I often wonder whether church bells are still significant in this day and age of digital technology or if the new generations are subconsciously absorbing the pealing too. So I turn to my daughter and ask her if she notices the bells ringing. “Oh, I love waking up with church bells. It’s so much better than the alarm clock! The alarm clock sort of tells you to wake up in a very angry way, but the church bells are gentle and they say ‘Wakey wakey ding-a-ling-y’ in a very happy faraway way”.
It is perhaps very apt to conclude this piece with Alfred Tennyson’s poem Ring Out, Wild Bells,which is sometimes recited at New Year’s Eve celebrations: Ring out the old, ring in the new/Ring, happy bells, across the snow/The year is going, let him go/Ring out the false, ring in the true. Hear, hear.
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Twitter: @KrisChetcuti