I almost missed it. If I had not received an email from a random business offering a £20 bonus should I recommend their product to my friends, I would have missed it. Did you know that 30th July had been designated the International Day of Friendship by the United Nations?

To mark the International Day of Friendship, the UN encourages governments, organisations, and community groups to hold events, activities and initiatives that promote solidarity, mutual understanding and reconciliation.

In 2011, the UN proclaimed the International Day of Friendship with the idea that friendship between peoples, countries, and cultures can inspire peace efforts and build bridges between communities. The UN wanted for the day to involve young people, as future leaders, in community activities that include different cultures and promote international understanding and respect for diversity.

I have not seen any coverage in the press about the day, but I do believe that friendship is important.

Friends enrich our lives. They help us to celebrate good times and can provide support when things start to wobble. They prevent loneliness and give us the opportunity to offer companionship.  Good friends increase our sense of belonging and purpose, reduce stress , improve self-confidence, help us cope with bad stuff and encourage us to be the best that we can be. Developing friendships takes effort but the benefits outweigh the investment.  Maintaining a healthy friendship should involve give and take – sometimes you are doing the supporting and at other times you are on the receiving end. By spending time with friends we fill up our lives with conversation, shared interests, caring, support and laugh-out-loud fun.  When things are tricky, our friends help us to keep things in perspective and when we are being idiots, good friends will kindly point this out.

It is often hard to make new friends in later life.  The opportunities are not so frequent, but I have found many members of the ringing community to be excellent at creating new relationships. They welcome newcomers with generosity and if you are willing to embrace what they have to offer and to muck in and contribute in any way that you are able, then they are willing to accept you, however weird/ (un)conventional/talented or otherwise that you might be.

In the words of C S Lewis: "Friendship is born when one person says to another "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

Therefore I would like to thank all my friends for their friendship and especially my ringing friends. It has been a delight to get to know so many of you over the past few years. Although bell ringing might not do anything so grandiose as promote world peace, it does provide opportunities for all sorts of people, of all ages, political persuasions, economic backgrounds and varied experiences to come together for a common purpose in friendship and community.

Surely, that is a start.

(and if any of you are interested in health insurance, please let me know because there is £20 on offer....)