The wedding took place at
All Saints Church, Deganwy, on the 6th October between David Raggett
and Ruth Parker. David learnt to ring in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire
where he quickly progressed to ring a number of quarters and
peals. During his apprenticeship with Npower he was stationed at
Little Barford in Cambridgeshire and moved to Raunds in
Northamptonshire where he played an active roll in local ringing.
It was here that he first met Ruth, both of them playing in the local
church music group, Ruth the violin and David the guitar.
Three years ago David was offered a post at Dolgarrog hydro
electric power station in North Wales, which he accepted and moved to
Deganwy. In the mean time Ruth was studying music at Liverpool
University and continued to live in the city after her degree.
David soon found that it was not too far to travel between North Wales
and Liverpool and so the relationship blossomed. Ruth took time
out to travel the world and not to be left out David had a couple of
weeks off work before Christmas last year to fly out to meet her in
Australia where he proposed to her.
David continued his ringing in North Wales but unfortunately
his local church at Deganwy only has a set of six chiming bells,
however he has found that he has time to ring for Sunday service at
Llandudno before returning to Deganwy for their Sunday service and so
has become a regular member of the Llandudno band.
To mark the day, a quarter peal of Yorkshire surprise major
was planned at Llandudno by members of the family, friends from
Yorkshire and a few local ringers prior to the wedding but
unfortunately there was a slight break down in communications and only
seven ringers turned up. So we were in a bit of a dilemma, but
realised that there was a ringer that David had helped in his time at
Raunds, sitting in his car the other side of the road, and so he was
grabbed and invited to ring the tenor to Bob Triples. With a few
nods and winks to assist the tenor a very respectable quarter of Bob
Triples was scored. It was only after the quarter that it emerged
that Pete (the tenor man from Raunds) didn’t realise that he was being
asked to ring a quarter, had not rung a bell for over six months and
had never rung a quarter in his life before. It was therefore a
major achievement for Pete and very fitting that the quarter involved
ringers from Tadcaster, Raunds and North Wales.
We were blessed with a wonderful day with perfect weather.
Everything else went perfectly to plan and naturally the bells were
rung at Deganwy both before and after the service.
The service was conducted by The Rev’d Pam Wright and there
were four bridesmaids, three of the bride's sisters and a cousin.
The best man was the groom's eldest brother. A reception was held
at the Grand Hotel Llandudno following the wedding where a good time
was had by all.
Quarter Peal at Holy Trinity, Llandudno, 6th October 2007, rung
to celebrate the wedding of David Raggett to Ruth Parker on this day.
1260 Plain Bob Triples, 1st
Quarter peal 8
1) Angie Spaven
2) Martin Brown
3) Stuart Raggett
4) Tony Diserens
5) James Gibb
6) Thomas Raggett
7) David Raggett (C.)
8) Pete Wathen
Quarter peal band from left to
right: Stuart Ragget, Thomas Ragget, David Ragget, Martin Brown, Angie
Spaven, James Gibb, Pete Wathen and Tony Diserens.
Stuart R Raggett