AN OKEHAMPTON family rang the bells for Britain when they travelled to Canada to share their passion for handbell ringing.
Husband and wife John and Jane Willis and their son and daughter-in-law Robert and Fiona jetted off to Toronto for the International Handbell Ringing Symposium last week.
The Willis family represented Great Britain at the event, playing as Tor Bells and taking one of the workshops to demonstrate bell-ringing technique.
The international gathering of handbell ringers is held every two years ? the family attended the event four years ago when it was held in Birmingham.
The family taught four in hand ringing as well as playing off the table. They were among around 100 ringers in total travelling from the UK to be at the symposium, which offered the chance to take part in an international concert, and other mass ringing events.
John, who has been handbell ringing for 13 years, said handbell ringing was becoming more internationally popular all the time, but had the biggest following in America and in Japan.
Indeed, it had grown so much that it had now even become part of the school curriculum in Japan, because, he said, it was believed to teach many of the values important to Japanese society.