🙋♂️This year I decided to do something I've never done before (or had the opportunity), ring a full peal! A peal, in bell ringing, firstly refers to the "a series of ringing bells" ... you would say they're a lovely peal of bells, or the bells peal, meaning ringing in a sequence. But it also refers ringing them to reach the maximum possible permutations without repetition. This is defined on 7 (triples) as 5040 changes and takes about 3 hours. The number of permutations on 8+ bells gets bigger, so its left around 5040. In the past I've only rung quarter peals, which are a quarter of the length, about 1260 changes, but this all varies by method and composition.
So your probably wondering, how do you remember 5040 unique changes and ring them with everyone else? Well you don't need to learn 5040 changes by heart (thankfully)! Change Ringing uses methods, which you can think of patterns and sequences. These methods only have a given number of repeat changes however before they come (a)round, or back to the ascending sequence of bells it started with "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8" for example.
The plain method, Grandsire Triples has 70 unique changes before repetition. So with change ringing we use touches, these are calls of "bob" or "single" to alter this method dynamically, making small but predictable changes to the sequence that everyone can understand. The method*, along with the bobs and singles are all rule based. To be able to ring the "peal" you need to ring the method following the rules. 😌
I bet that sounds easy ... just follow some rules. However along with remembering the method rules, you also have to "ring" the bell and identify which position you can pull it in, following those rules. All at the same time, this begins to make it interesting, as you have to maintain concentration, continually counting and ringing.
The Peal On the morning of the peal, I drove to Walton-On-The-Hill, a ring of 8 bells just north of Liverpool city. We had all the bells up, and began our Peal of Grandsire triples. All going well, a few bobs and singles, the bells sounding lovely (and I hadn't forgotten what I was doing).
Then disaster, the 5th started ringing slightly more frequently, disrupting the musical tones of grandsire. It's ringers rope also flapping away. We all stood (set the bells to stop them ringing), while the 5th continued it's ever more intense chiming. Looking up at the ceiling, some large fluff had come through... how very odd. Those experienced ringers went up to investigate, and discovered the rope, which you ring the bell with, was frayed and had split. Rendering it unringeable (like that). However, our band had a couple of experienced hands, who found a spare rope in a corner, and had a new rope tied up securely within minutes.
🙄 Off we set again, attempt 2... Ringing away, we started our plain course, added some bobs and singles, getting further than before. It was all sounding delightful, grandsire is actually quite musical, then, "STAND"! Again we stopped, this time the conductor had lost place and had possibly made a mistake. This renders the peal invalid, as it would be "repeating". But as we had only got to just after 10am, we agreed 1 more try with a different conductor and indeed a different method, we switched to Plain Bob Triples. Plain bob has slightly rules for dodging, arguably simpler to ring too. Although the rules were slightly different we kept ringing, with only tiny mistakes. Then a few "Bob" ... "ohh not yet" and "BOB ...erm SINGLE"... Then, "STAND"! Again, things had got lost and the conductor miss counted the composition.
After that, we gave up, 3 attempts was good, and it's was getting close to lunch. So we gave up, and went back to Grandsire Triples and jut rang a quarter peal instead 😎 So it wasn't meant to, but I did score a Quarter Peal, as I don't get to ring those often myself. But I'm still determined to ring a peal! I hope to get that in by the end of the year! Anyway, we did manage to ring, with 🤦♂️short restarts for about 3 hours 🤣 So I know I can physically manage it. You can find the successful quarter peal here on bellboard: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1700471
Thanks to all those who made it possible to at least try 🙂 Even though there were some mistakes, I did get a 1/4 peal and challenged my skills * We can also ring principles, which similar to methods ... but I'll post about that in future.
If you want to know more, message me: martyn@hey.com or X me @martyncodes
About Martyn
Martyn | Software Developer & Agile Evangelist from Manchester (UK) 🚂Often found riding (ticket checking) on steam trains ... 🐈Chilling with my cats 🏃🏻♂️or Running over hills and through mud He | Him 🏳️🌈 📝Find me at: https://martynbristow.co.uk and my blog at https://blog.martynbristow.co.uk
