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The bells, the bells

Or just one very special bell to be precise.

Comments

  • The next time you see @charltonnick selling stuff on here or when you visit the museum and put some money in the re-purposed 1990 Greenwich ballot box we know use for donations this is what your money buys.

    A rusty old bell?

    Yes, but this is probably a 60 to 70 years old or even more rusty old bell.

    It was taken to Durham in the 1960s buy the son of the original owner when he went to work at the university there.  

    Kept as a memento of his father, we assume, we have now acquired it.

    It may have been a school bell or some form of WW2 alarm bell but has been painted red and white with the word CHARLTON spelt out around it as you can see.  It still works too.

    Maybe it was even taken to one or both of the cup finals. We need to search the old films and records to try and find an image of it.

    So thanks for money you have donated and will donate.

    Now, how do I sneak it pass the stewards into the covered end?
  • Down your trousers.

    Matron has told me there's plenty of room.
  • Are you sure that’s correct and that this isn’t simply “the bell that tolled...”

  • The next time you see @charltonnick selling stuff on here or when you visit the museum and put some money in the re-purposed 1990 Greenwich ballot box we know use for donations this is what your money buys.

    A rusty old bell?

    Yes, but this is probably a 60 to 70 years old or even more rusty old bell.

    It was taken to Durham in the 1960s buy the son of the original owner when he went to work at the university there.  

    Kept as a memento of his father, we assume, we have now acquired it.

    It may have been a school bell or some form of WW2 alarm bell but has been painted red and white with the word CHARLTON spelt out around it as you can see.  It still works too.

    Maybe it was even taken to one or both of the cup finals. We need to search the old films and records to try and find an image of it.

    So thanks for money you have donated and will donate.

    Now, how do I sneak it pass the stewards into the covered end?
    Gives the drummer a run for his money!
  • The next time you see @charltonnick selling stuff on here or when you visit the museum and put some money in the re-purposed 1990 Greenwich ballot box we know use for donations this is what your money buys.

    A rusty old bell?

    Yes, but this is probably a 60 to 70 years old or even more rusty old bell.

    It was taken to Durham in the 1960s buy the son of the original owner when he went to work at the university there.  

    Kept as a memento of his father, we assume, we have now acquired it.

    It may have been a school bell or some form of WW2 alarm bell but has been painted red and white with the word CHARLTON spelt out around it as you can see.  It still works too.

    Maybe it was even taken to one or both of the cup finals. We need to search the old films and records to try and find an image of it.

    So thanks for money you have donated and will donate.

    Now, how do I sneak it pass the stewards into the covered end?
    I really wouldn't do that...

    A fine addition to the museum, but it looks like a vigorous shaking could cause it to fly about in 3 different directions!

    Unless Irving Towers is prepared for a expensive legal court case from some poor bugger who's been brained by large metal object...
  • The next time you see @charltonnick selling stuff on here or when you visit the museum and put some money in the re-purposed 1990 Greenwich ballot box we know use for donations this is what your money buys.

    A rusty old bell?

    Yes, but this is probably a 60 to 70 years old or even more rusty old bell.

    It was taken to Durham in the 1960s buy the son of the original owner when he went to work at the university there.  

    Kept as a memento of his father, we assume, we have now acquired it.

    It may have been a school bell or some form of WW2 alarm bell but has been painted red and white with the word CHARLTON spelt out around it as you can see.  It still works too.

    Maybe it was even taken to one or both of the cup finals. We need to search the old films and records to try and find an image of it.

    So thanks for money you have donated and will donate.

    Now, how do I sneak it pass the stewards into the covered end?
    I really wouldn't do that...

    A fine addition to the museum, but it looks like a vigorous shaking could cause it to fly about in 3 different directions!

    Unless Irving Towers is prepared for a expensive legal court case from some poor bugger who's been brained by large metal object...
    Doesn't look fragile at all.  Henry, shake it vigorously by your head and tell us if you survive.
  • It's solid brass but it is a museum piece so we aren't planning to ring it other than on special occasions.
  • It's solid brass but it is a museum piece so we aren't planning to ring it other than on special occasions.
    Not imminent but don’t break it when Duchâtelet finally leaves us
  • It's solid brass but it is a museum piece so we aren't planning to ring it other than on special occasions.
    Quite. That could see the bell's end. 
  • A fine object. Glad the museum has got it. I'd question two things though. 60-70 years old? Looks older to my untrained eye. Solid brass? Doesn't look a very brassy colour to me (well, maybe in the top photo), it looks too grey in the others.
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  • Stig said:
    A fine object. Glad the museum has got it. I'd question two things though. 60-70 years old? Looks older to my untrained eye. Solid brass? Doesn't look a very brassy colour to me (well, maybe in the top photo), it looks too grey in the others.
    You may well be right on both. @Stig

    Not sure the photos do it justice but will take some more.

    Hard to date such objects.
  • I seem to recollect hearing a bell being rung at The Valley on occasions way back in the late 50’s early 60’s......though I can’t say I remember whereabouts in the ground or by whom.
    Of course I remember the Pompey bell ringer.....not sure when he first started coming though.
  • To me it looks like the type of bell used in virtually every school in the country to signal the end of "playtime", firedrills, etc. etc. until replaced (in the 1950s/60s?) by electric bell systems, and could therefore have been made any time from the 19th century onwards.

    Perhaps of more relevance is when it was "repurposed" for football purposes, and my eye is drawn to the slightly unusual font used for the word CHARLTON painted on it.

    This may, of course, just have been the artistic whim of the painter.  But I wonder if this font was ever used by the club, and if so would this be a useful dating guide?
  • Um we still had a hand rung bell at school in the 80s.

    but then we also had to stand behind each other in a line made up of your class at the end of each break.

    bell used to ring then a female teacher whose name eludes me shouted out ‘lips closed tight, smart walk to lines’ 

    Can still hear it today. 
  • N01R4M said:
    To me it looks like the type of bell used in virtually every school in the country to signal the end of "playtime", firedrills, etc. etc. until replaced (in the 1950s/60s?) by electric bell systems, and could therefore have been made any time from the 19th century onwards.

    Perhaps of more relevance is when it was "repurposed" for football purposes, and my eye is drawn to the slightly unusual font used for the word CHARLTON painted on it.

    This may, of course, just have been the artistic whim of the painter.  But I wonder if this font was ever used by the club, and if so would this be a useful dating guide?
    Yeah, in my junior school, early to mid-60s, the senior year kids were rostered in turn to walk up the corridor ringing the handbell to mark the end of playtime.
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