A BELLRINGING couple from Clevedon has donged church bells for every royal occasion since the Queen was coronated in 1953.

David and Margaret James have now achieved a rare distinction for ringing the church bells of St John’s at every royal event of the Queen's 70-year reign. 

The Clevedon couple both learned to ring church bells in the early 1950s so they could ring specifically for the coronation. 

They have both now donged bells for the Silver, Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilees, and recently rang the church bells to mark the Queen's death on Friday, September 9, and on Saturday to announce the proclamation of the new King, Charles III.

On the death of a monarch, the event is traditionally marked by the ringing of church bells. By order of the Church of England, every bell in the country was muffled with leather caps for the ten-day mourning period.

They were briefly unmuffled to let the news ring out of the proclamation of King Charles.

Margaret grew up in Nottinghamshire and recalled how the band of ringers in her village had been 'decimated' during the Second World War. When King George VI died in 1952, a call went out for new ringers so that the coronation could be marked in the traditional way. 

David, then a boy in Northamptonshire, also learned to ring for the very same reason.

The couple met and married through the love of bellringing when they were both students at the University of Manchester. They later moved to Clevedon in 1969. 

Since then, they have been faithful members of St John’s Church and ringers in the tower.

They have also recently received two messages from the late Queen. 

In June, a letter of thanks was sent from Buckingham Palace to acknowledge the quarter-peal rung to mark the Platinum Jubilee, and then in early September, Queen Elizabeth sent her congratulations to the couple on the occasion of their 60th wedding anniversary. The message arrived just a few days before her death.

Bellringing is an important part of British culture and began as an ancient practice.

By the year 750, bellringing was common enough for the Archbishop of York to order all priests to toll their bells at certain times. 

Since then, church bells have rung to notify and celebrate many occasions including coronations and victories in the First and Second World Wars.