I have never rung the bells for a funeral before but I did so on Friday for half an hour before the service. We planned to ring for 25 minutes and then the tenor was tolled for 5 minutes.
Six minutes before the service and 1 minute before we would have stopped anyway, "Stand!" was called following a very loud bang from upstairs. The ringer of the 5th discovered that the clapper had fallen out of his bell or parted company with it in some other way. We were quite safe as there are two wooden floors between the ringers and the bells.
As it was a funeral we were ringing half-muffled. The video below shows muffles being put on some bells, but it is a brave chap who walks amongst the bells whilst they are up. I certainly wouldn't!
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