Churches and town crier welcome Olympic Games with mass bell ringing

At 8.12am Big Ben and thousands of bells across the UK will ring out as loudly as possible for three minutes to welcome the games.
St Mary’s Church in Thatcham is one taking part.
It will ring out the five ring triple for the first three minutes and then carry on with a further quarter peal of St Simons triples.
This will last about 45 minutes.
Bell ringer, Bill Butler, said he hoped that all of Thatcham would be able to hear the chimes.
He said: “We started planning this about three months ago.
“We were just going to ring hand bells but we decided this would be grander.”
Newbury Town Crier, Brian Sylvester, will be ringing his bell on the balcony of the town hall for three minutes and the bell ringers at St Nicolas Church in Newbury are also taking part.