Glasgow City Centre. 2021. It is quiet, but only due to the pandemic hanging over the world. In any other year, the city would be alive with sound. Now, cars, ambulances, fire engines and police cars litter the streets. Children mull about on the pavement. The odd drunkard shouts too loud for the early evening. There’s a student playing the guitar on Buchanan Street, trying to garner some extra cash. Three teenagers drag their skateboards up the hill.

What is missing from this picture? To the average Glaswegian, nothing. To a campanologist, 300 years of history. For just over a year, one key element of the cityscape has been absent. The final bell tower in Glasgow has fallen silent. St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral has closed its doors to the ringing community. However, this is not an incident determined by current events, simply accelerated by them.