John Gibson: Bells, the bells ring in a marathon

Ear defenders somebody, please! The bellringers of St Cuthbert’s Church at the West End obviously know the ropes. They’ve set a new Scottish peal-ringing record.

In eight hours they rang 12,240 changes of Triton Delight Royal, the longest ever rung in Scotland, by kind permission of Saint Cuthbert. Tech talk but that’s the name of the peal. For a fuller explanation see your friendly neighbourhood bellringer.

As they say in leafy Leith, the ten members of the St Cuthbert’s team ‘‘fairly went their dinger”. If you crave an earful, they do their stuff every Sunday and Tuesday.

Charles Laughton went to his grave with a ring-a-ding bells in his ears.

Vintage Esther

Back on the prowl and baring her teeth, Esther Rantzen. She’ll have you crying into your cranberry with: “I belong to that group of romantics who take forever to fall in love but when we do we fall deeply.

“Even in my teens, when I had an unrequited crush on a talented young stage director, although I never plucked up the courage to tell him how I felt and I knew he eventually found a girlfriend, my heart stubbornly refused to move on.

“Now, in my seventies, it’s as true as it ever was. It’s now more than 13 years since my husband Desmond (Wilcox) died and I still think of him every day. . . I think of him now not mournfully but with nostalgia, remembering the love and the laughter.”

Esther adds: “I did go speed-dating once, on an evening for young men who were looking for older women. It was fun but by ‘older’ they meant 35, not 70.”

Try Age Concern, Esther.