00:03Church bells, it's a sound familiar wherever you are in England, but especially here in Rochester
00:12where the sounds been heard since at least the 11th century. But there are concerns they may
00:19be falling silent. In the last 20 years the number of bell ringers has dropped by nearly 20%.
00:25Here in Kent they are determined to buck this trend and unlock ringing for the next generation.
00:33So we're heading up the bell tower now to the ringing chamber for the evening practice and we
00:41have about 100 steps before we get there. The man who's made it his mission to inspire the next
00:46generation of bell ringers is Rochester Cathedral Tower Captain Neil Jones. You can imagine a village
00:54seen as the sound of church bells come across the landscape and as we lose our ringers that sound
01:01of England is one that's gradually dying away. We estimate there's about 30,000. Of that we estimate
01:11about 60% of those are aged over 60. I spoke to some of those learning the ropes. It kind
01:18of is not on a
01:19screen and butterflies in my stomach because it's just like wow everyone can hear me.
01:26So I've been ringing for eight years. Eight years? Wow so what age did you start?
01:31I started at age five. I would really love to start teaching people since I've been doing it for so
01:36long.
01:37Oh it's quite exciting because you know that you're with loads of different people and you can feel the
01:44different ways of people talking having fun. There'll be a lot of churches closing because ringing is
01:51becoming something that's more rare so we need to recruit more young ringers so that the tradition
01:57can be passed down generations. That's what we like to hear. To make a ring of you yes. Yes.
02:05For now the bells have fallen silent but not forever. Thanks to those keeping the tradition alive for the future.
02:16Harry Smith, KMTV, in Rochester Cathedral.
