OCCASIONALLY my sister living in Tavistock (where I was born and served an apprenticeship with the Tavistock Gazette back in the 40s), sends me cuttings from the paper.

I was a mite surprised a while ago to receive a cutting on there being only four known church bells to have been cast in Tavistock, not one of them mentioned as being one now hanging in church grounds in South Australia, in a very small town called Blinman.

You did actually make mention of this bell years ago when a Plymothian visited Blinman, and on receiving that item I sent you a photograph of this very bell made by Nicholls Williams, Engineers, Tavistock. You chose not to use this picture but did send it to my sister as I requested, who then returned it to me.

The bell at Blinman was, up until the very early 1900s, the Udaiiamutana (an aboriginal word for ?a rocky place?) mine bell, and when the mine closed was given to the only church in the town which has a population of 120 and is 502k north of Adelaide.

Blinman is a very popular tourist venue in the Flinders Ranges and thousands of tourists have seen the bell which hangs just inside the church gateway.

Being an old newspaper compositor from way back, I do like to see things in the ?papers, to be correct.

Ron Hellier

1/1033 Lower North East Road

Highbury

South Australia 5089