Ring Out, Wild Bells — The Winterval Conspiracy

Submitted by: Simon G.

My dad died on New Year’s Eve 2019, and my mum posted this poem, one of her favourites, by Tennyson on New Year’s Day to mark it. She then spent most of 2020 on her own at home shielding. I’d been working on this setting of the poem for her, until she fell suddenly ill herself just before Christmas 2020; I managed to hurriedly complete the recording of it before being told by the hospital I could go up to visit her on 26 December; I played it to her in her hospital bed, but I’m not sure if she was conscious enough to appreciate it. She died the next morning.