The church bell in this village still has the confidence to ring at 6:00am. Indiscriminately, it wakes up everybody; believers and nonbelievers. The bell has a mournful tone. I wouldn’t really call it a note. It’s an iron clangy sound, well-suited to slate-grey skies, wind and turnip soup. The right sound to call the farmers, seamstresses and millers (who used to live here) to early mass. And they dutifully came.
Now the computer programmers, promotion coordinators and mobile phone sales people must hear the bell and grumble. They’ll call it discrimination on the basis of religion. One day they’ll petition city hall to stop the early morning clanging. Maybe they’ll contribute money to buy a more melodious-sounding bell – to ring on bank holidays.
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