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Bob Christy
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written by Andrew Kelso,
Goldhanger Tower Captain, in 2021 Bob Christy was a stalwart of
the Goldhanger band of ringers for many years and was one of the first to
warmly welcome me to join them when I moved to the village. He was taught to
ring in the mid 1990s by Christine Drake, who taught so many ringers in the
Blackwater area. He would go to Tollesbury for weekly lessons and often spoke
warmly of them. He was less confident about returning to ring at Goldhanger,
as his first and second lessons there (not under Christine’s tuition!) both
featured a broken stay, but with Christine’s guidance was soon returned to
the village band where he remained a central member. |
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He had (in the nicest
possible way) an agricultural ringing style, and ringers next to him would
often catch a bit of his rope as well as their own – always the gentleman, he
apologised profusely whenever this happened, but despite his best efforts,
could never get the rope to drop completely straight. He was the tower steeple
keeper for many years. I can still recall his delight when he found out that
he didn’t need to grease the sliders and running boards as he had been
diligently doing for years, and he enthusiastically joined in the cleaning
effort to good effect! He kept a spick and span operation, and his background
as an engineer was evident. |
Bob is on the far right
in this 2015 photo |
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Bob lowering the tenor wheel in
2019 |
One of his last tower duties was removing the
tenor wheel, which involved also removing a louvre and lowering it down the
outside of the tower on a rope – this was an exciting enterprise and his
recount of it was infectiously enthusiastic. He rang regularly on Wednesdays and Sundays,
and was perpetually driven to improve his ringing and get Plain Bob Doubles
under his belt. He loved tower outings, the annual dinners in the Chequers,
and was usually amongst the first at the bar after ringing ordering his
habitual pint of Atlantic. A lifelong
Quaker, everyone that met Bob was struck by his kindness and generosity. In
fact, I don’t think I have ever met a kinder man. Bob died peacefully on 2nd July 2021 following
a short illness, leaving his wife Marion and children Spencer
and Jane. |
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Postscript Since Andrew wrote this article, Marion has
sadly also passed away.
this picture is taken from the Lauriston Farm video at… www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O1ADogk7BU back to... |
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