The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7179 p904-936
22-29 December 2001

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

Christmas miscellany summary

"Ding, dong! Merrily on high..."

Like pharmacy, bell-ringing is a small but social world where everybody seems to know everyone else and one where friendships are easily made. Jane Landles has been bell-ringing since she was at school. She met her husband through a bell-ringing trip.

"I learnt to ring in Morpeth, Northumberland, were there is a secular tower — one not attached to a church — in the town square. I continued ringing while I was at university in Bradford, and also during my career in hospital pharmacy and then the pharmaceutical industry. Bell-ringers are very friendly and you can normally join in a practice session wherever you go."

Jane normally rings two or three times a week. On Thursday lunchtimes she joins friends for practice sessions at St Giles-in-the-field church, Holborn, in the shadow of London's Centre Point office block.

"You have to have some physical strength to handle the bells and to make progress in learning to ring them, but it is mostly in the technique. Bell-ringing is a lifelong passion involving youngsters to pensioners. You never stop learning."

Jane has been on trips to the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa and the welcome from fellow ringers abroad has always been warm she says.

Bell-ringers use complicated looking diagrams to illustrate different "methods", as musical arrangements for bells are known. These can be built up into quarter peals (around 1,250 changes) or full peals (around 5,000 changes). A full peal takes around three hours to ring. Once rung details are published in Ringing World, the activity's house magazine, with details of where, when and who took part. Some leading ringers have managed over 1,000 peals.

Bell-ringing is not without its hazards. The largest bell at St Giles weighs 18 cwt (900kg), for example, and the ropes travel quickly. A survey published in the British Medical Journal in 1991 (301:1415) reported 79 injuries suffered by ringers, ranging from rope burns and bruises through to fractures and even death.

Jane started her pharmacy career with preregistration training at Torquay hospital, moving on to be a resident pharmacist at Bedford and then to the Royal Victoria Infimary, a teaching hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne.

She then moved into the pharmaceutical industry as a medical information officer for Norwich Eaton (now Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals). From there she moved to Stuart Pharmaceuticals (then part of ICI, subsequently demerged as Zeneca and now AstraZeneca).

Jane's current role is deputy secretary of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which is the body responsible for administering the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's code of practice for the promotion of prescription medicines.