Steve is a late starter when it comes to ringing, he first held a rope in October 2016 at the age of 54 after being asked by his wife Jill, a ringer of over 20 years, and who feared poor attendance, to go along to a Tower Open Day that was being held as part of the English Heritage Weekends at Tilston in Cheshire which has an extremely nice sounding ring of 6 by J Taylor & Co of Loughborough recast in 1924 and within 15 minutes he was hooked.

Being somewhat focused when he takes on anything, the traditional methods of teaching used by the Tower Captain at the time of 30 minutes before the main weekly practice as a learner session were not really providing enough rope time so having progressed to ringing with the main band fairly quickly Steve started looking at how technology could be used to extend his rope time, above that of ringing a silent tied bell. This was the start of an interest in the use of Simulators in the ringing environment as an aid to learning at all levels.

Due to various local difficulties Steve couldn’t develop the use of simulators in ringing at his home tower for a number of years. He is now responsible for teaching new ringers, running practices and helping those who want to progress to methods to do so at his home tower. Most of all he is determined that Ringing should be fun, and training should be tailored to the individual and of course, Simulators are high up in the plan.