On Thursday 21 April the bells rang out over Pinner to celebrate HM Queen Elizabeth ll’s 90th birthday. Ringing took place between 12 noon and 1.00pm and included ‘firing’ the bells. 'Firing' means to ring all the bells simultaneously, not in rounds or any method, but all at once. It takes some practice to do this accurately, especially on the lighter bells, since they must be held on the balance and the rope pulled fractionally later than the tenor rope.
The effect is to sound one very loud crash of the bells each time they are fired, and is obviously different from anything people would normally hear!