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This is the discussion thread for our October book, The Nine Tailors. This thread is for people who might not have finished the book yet, so please keep any spoilers/discussions of the ending etc for the spoiler thread.

I sort of forgot it was October! Sorry about that and thanks for opening the thread, Judy :)

No worries, Susan! Must say I really loved this book - I think I enjoyed it more second time around.

I like the portrayal of the Fenland village and the bell ringers, who remind me a bit of characters in Thomas Hardy, though here we are in East Anglia rather than the West Country!

I am in denial of winter coming...

I had never read this one before and I really enjoyed the setting and the detail about the bell ringing.

I am loving this book. Look forward to the discussion.

Good to hear, Linda. As I am now reading LP books which I haven't read before, I am really enjoying these.

Glad you are loving it, Linda. :)

Has anyone in our group taken part in bell ringing? It feels quite realistic in the book, but I have no experience of this myself!

There are some fun videos about change ringing on Youtube. You can try these, or search for yourself -- they're easy to find.

A very short introduction to change ringing.


Starting out with how to raise a bell up, which Lord Peter insists on doing himself. Interesting because it's split screen so you can see what's going on, but it's very short because it's a very light bell. It can take a lot more work to raise up a tenor!


Here's a tutorial on raising a bell, but doesn't show the bell itself. 3 minutes.


For example, here's a nice video of all the bells being raised -- a good look at the full ring, though only six bells. But worth the 2 minutes. Show how noisy it can be in the tower when all the bells are being rung!


Instruction on raising a bell for new ringers


Here's a very scholarly, mathematical explanation of what they're doing.


This is a fairly long but interesting film on the craft of bellringing. 47 minutes.


A nice little video of new bells for St. Mary's. 3 minutes.


And I discovered that there are actually competitions for bell ringers. Here's a winning peal in the 2014 Essex Trophy 10 bell Striking Competition. You can hear the calls, as in the peal in the book. And it's fun to see the plaques on the walls like the ones in the Fenchurch Saint Paul bell tower. 13 minutes.
I didn't listen to it all, since it seems pretty repetitive to me, but I'm sure to a serious bell ringer it would be a delight to listen to!


Most of the videos focus on the ringers, but here are a few that show what's going on in the bell chamber.




And finally, a carillon, a very different way of playing bells.


And tubular bells, another very different way to ring




There is lots more out there, but these few may be enjoyable for starters.

I had no idea it was so complicated! I loved the way the reverend dragged LP into the bell ringing after rescuing him :)

Wow, thanks for all those bell-ringing links, Everyman - I will look forward to dipping in and watching some of them!

I was also amused at the way that Peter gets "volunteered" to join in the all-night bell-ringing session!

I think the Reverand and his wife are wonderful characters, both amusing and realistic.

Thought this was a bit more complicated than the ones we have read recently. Certainly gave me an insight into how complicated bell ringing is. Thanks Everyman for the links.
I thought the Reverand and his wife were well done. Think we have all come across people like this in our lives, especially connected to the church.

I agree that the Reverend and his wife were both lovely characters. It was also nice to see a little more of Bunter in this book.

Sandy wrote: "I think the Reverand and his wife are wonderful characters, both amusing and realistic."

Totally agree. As least, I agree with amusing, and enjoyable, not so sure I agree that he is realistic (she very much is). But their automatic kindness, and his passion, are both a delight. I would love to believe that that level of kindness an courtesy was realistic for English vicars. Perhaps it is.

This is one of my favorites as well, though I have to admit that I glossed over the rather long passages about the bell ringing detail! The story is great and so are the characters, especially, as some have noted, the vicar and his wife.

I think the setting is quite autobiographical . From recently reading a biography of her, Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barbara Reynolds, as a child she lived in a rectory in the Fens, at Bluntisham-cum-Earith in Cambridgeshire, where her father was the rector. So I'm guessing perhaps the rector and his wife are partly based on her parents .

Also, teenager Hilary, who wants to be a writer and go to Oxford, must have autobiographical elements - I find her relationship with her father, Sir Henry (maybe another version of Dorothy Sayers's dad, also called Henry?) very touching.

Here is a link to a photo of the church where Sayers' dad was rector - it actually has 8 bells rather than 9!


And here is the very grand rectory where the young Dorothy lived - this is the same link I posted when a few of us were reading the biography:

Just wanted to note that looking ahead to Gaudy Night, I recently listened to the audiobook read very nicely by Ian Carmichael. I got totally wrapped up in it, even though I've read the book a couple of times before. Highly recommended.

Judy, thx for biographical info. Interesting!

That is interesting, Judy. You can often sense authenticity in a book and wonder whether it is autobiographical. I think DLS's got a real sense of the place and people in this novels.

Joanne, I have just started, "Gaudy Night." I haven't read it before, but it is the one I have been waiting for - having heard so much about it!

I think DLS got the Fens exactly right and her having lived in the area accounts for the authenticity.

Loved the bell ringing too - some passages in the book raise goosebumps on my arms whenever I read them.

Yes, it felt very authentic, I agree.

I'd be interested to know how often this kind of change-ringing event has happened in real life, if at all - just did a bit of googling but failed to find any real-life 9 hour peals.

However, I've just found a page about the history of bell ringing which mentions a six-hour peal of bells which happened in a Suffolk village I know fairly well, Debenham, but back in the 18th century - there is a poem about this event naming some of the ringers! However, it doesn't say what time of day or night this took place. Scroll down to 1767 for the poem:



I see it also says that bell ringers tended to be riotous and heavy drinkers during the 19th century!

I also found a page put up by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers celebrating the 70th anniversary of The Nine Tailors in 2004. They were hoping to have the bells of Bluntisham Church, where Dorothy's father was rector, rehung, but I don't know if this came off or not?



Sadly, the link at the bottom of this page where you are supposed to be able to see the bells doesn't work.

Maybe I'm at fault for not watching the thoughtfully provided youtube links, but can someone just explain to me the "tailors" of the title? I get that they're the bells, but I can't puzzle out how bells = tailors (or taylors, as the case may be).
TIA

I've just done a bit of googling about this, and apparently there are different theories about the 'Nine tailors make a man' saying, but the bell-related idea is that tailor sounds like teller.

Traditionally, church bells were initially struck nine times to announce the death of a man, six times for a woman and three times for a child, followed by tolls for each year of the person's life. So 'nine tellers/tailors make a man'.

There is a longer explanation of the title on the Wikipedia page for the book, but I won't link to it in this thread as it has spoilers on it.

Judy

Thanks for the link. Fascinating, the history of bell ringing...that it goes back to the Naples area of Italy a.d. and that, after change ringing was introduced in England, it took on so many permutations.

“Toll-toll-toll; and a pause; toll-toll-toll; and a pause; toll-toll-toll; the nine tailors, or teller-strokes, that mark the passing of a man."-TNT

May I jump on to the question, what's "tailor"? With another, what's "teller"?

If the British meaning of teller is one who counts votes, could it mean in this context, one who counts by tolling?

Linda wrote: "May I jump on to the question, what's "tailor"? With another, what's "teller"?."

I take it that teller is that the bell tells you who has died. Since in a fairly small community you pretty much know who is ill or injured, you probably know when you hear the bell tell you whether man or woman and how old, who it is that has died. The bells tell you; they are tellers.

At least that's a theory, and the best one I've come across so far.

Teller, I understand, in local vernacular turned into tailor.

Well, maybe that's not right, but until a better theory comes along it's the one I'm sticking with!

For those of us who remember life without internet/phones, as I do, it is always so interesting to me to read about how such information was provided. As Everyman says, in a remote, rural community, you would have a good idea who had died. The church would have been so central to that community and for the Reverend, you did truly feel that the parishoners were his flock and he felt responsible for them.

Do they still do bell-ringing?

I recall that Midsomer Murders had an episode that involved bell-ringing. They were involved in some kind of bell-ringing competition.

Jan C wrote: "Do they still do bell-ringing?

I recall that Midsomer Murders had an episode that involved bell-ringing. They were involved in some kind of bell-ringing competition."

Yep we have bells and bell ringers here in our village

Jan C wrote: "Do they still do bell-ringing? "

Some of the YouTube links I gave earlier are from bell ringing competitions. Others, and many others I didn't link to, make clear that change ringing is very much alive and well in England. Just go to Youtube and search on "change ringing" and you will get, according to the search box, about 112,000 results.

It's also done in the US; there's an early link to change ringing in the National Cathedral, with the Washington Ringing Society; this is a quite interesting, short video about change ringing there, including why they can't ring tunes on the bells. The first speaker in this is a veteran of 39 years experience.

P.S. In the link I just gave, they mention that there are are about 40 towers in the US with bells and change ringing. More than I would have expected personally!

Get a taste of how to learn how to ring changes.

Here's an example of change ringing on the hand bells that Lord Peter and the team practiced on before the big ring on the real bells.

Edit to above: don't miss noticing the quite large audience there to watch and listen. Frankly, a minute or two of it was enough for me, but if I really understood it I would probably appreciate it a lot more. But that so many people would sit still for so long just listening to it is, to me, quite amazing.

Further edit to above, relative to video


Notice also that they are doing all of this without any music before them, purely from memory or, perhaps, from knowing how the process works and figuring it out as they go along.

I can hardly believe we have only two more novels (and one short story collection) to go before we finish our 2016 challenge! I just wonder whether anyone has come to these books for the first time and, if so, were they what you expected?

I've read them all before, but it was a wonderful opportunity to re-visit them and get other people's views as well.

I think I have read them all before, but I remember the TV versions so well I'm not really sure. I know I read and re-read the books with Harriet. I did most of them on audio this time which changed the experience a bit; Ian Carmichael does the audio versions so for Nine Tailors particularly TV and book merged. I don't remember Busman's Honeymoon at all, but I own the book and know I've read it. It has been a fun year. Thank you.

And, thanks to Everyman for all those bell ringing links.

I've just watched the second episode of the TV version, and enjoyed it a lot. Very true to the book and I was impressed that quite a few of the actors did Norfolk accents - usually nobody bothers to do an East Anglian accent in a TV drama, but this time they did!

Many thanks for the videos, Everyman - I've just watched the change ringing on handbells one, and, as you say, a big crowd there to watch!

I was intrigued to know more about the magnificent church they used for the TV series - just checked at the imdb and it is St Peter, Walpole in Norfolk, which is said to be one of the most famous parish churches in England. It is also huge! I will hope to pay a visit as I'm only in the next county.

Hubby and I went to see it one wet weekend (we are in Cambridgeshire)

Pghfan wrote: "I've read them all before, but it was a wonderful opportunity to re-visit them and get other people's views as well."

Ditto. And in my opinion, the best is yet to come.

I had only read the first five, or so, and so this has been very interesting for me. I am now immersed in, "Gaudy Night." I feel incredibly lucky to be coming to these for the first time.

Talking of bell ringing, there is currently a row going on at York Minster, as all of the bell ringers have been sacked!



All of the volunteer bell ringers have been sacked and forced to give back their keys to the bell tower. So bell ringing is still full of controversy and drama!

Yowww! Two months ago I wouldn't have read this, let alone react to it. I'm with those 30 bell ringers.

Locals are also VERY upset the bells will not be rung at Christmas, so that is a good sign that people do not object to the bells - far from it.

Susan wrote: "Locals are also VERY upset the bells will not be rung at Christmas, so that is a good sign that people do not object to the bells - far from it."

Modern english people love noise IME