BBC Melville On Churchbell Carillon In Normad

The QOLE of this little Normandy Church, two or three miles from Caum, wants me to say how sorry he is about these bells. His village has only just been liberated, and it's taken until yesterday to clean up the many German snipers left in hiding.

When I asked the QOLE if we might record the bells of his church ringing in celebration of the village's freedom, he asked me to wait for a week. And this is why. They used to have a very lovely little curry yaw in this church. Only three bells but they were very proud of

it. And many of the villagers were expert bell rings. But when the Allies breathed a village, three German snipers hid in the square tar of the church. And for two nights they were very troublesome. At last they gave themselves up. But it was found that they had smashed the big bell of the curry yaw. We shall look away and promise that if I would only wait

a week he would have the big bell repaired and you could hear the full curry yaw. But He added that in any case, they were going to ring the remaining two bells at once this morning to celebrate our coming.

And I thought that you would rather hear the bells now, even though the big one has been smashed by the Germans, to let you know that the people of Normandy are celebrating their liberation, that church bells are ringing, and the villagers are going to mass to give thanks for their freedom.