Issue 37, January 2004

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News, Information and Trivia for Ringers in the Derby & Ilkeston Districts

Derby District Annual District Meeting

Following the afternoon ringing at Alvaston and St Luke’s and the service at the Cathedral, the Cathedral ringers provided an excellent traditional ringers tea.

The meeting afterwards took place in the choir area behind the altar (is this the most illustrious venue the annual meeting has ever had, I wonder?).

You should be receiving Strike Notes with, or soon after the meeting minutes containing all the detail. Here are a few highlights:

The resignations of Graeme Hughes and Elaine Baines led to the election of Chris Gilbert, from St Peter’s as our new representative to the General Committee. It was not possible to fill the District vacancy at the meeting.

The committee for 2004 is:

Chairman	Steve Harpham (Mugginton)
Secretary	Chris Willis (Unattached)
Ringing Master	Alec Humphrey (St Peter’s, Derby)
Committee (General)	Chris Gilbert (St Peter’s)  Rod Pearson (Cathedral)
Committee (District)	Jenny Booth (Brailsford)  John Booth (Belper)  John Cater (Sutton on the Hill)
Education Committee	Gill Hughes (Belper)  John Heaton (Cathedral)
District representative to  the Bells Advisory Committee	John Cater

Following a suggestion at the General Meeting last October that the Districts should try to avoid holding meetings on the same day, there was discussion about the possibility of moving the Derby meeting to the first Saturday in the month. A proposal was made and seconded that the Derby District meeting should normally be held on the first Saturday. This was carried by a majority. The minutes contain more detail on the reasoning behind the move.

Jenny Booth

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The Ones that got away!

Many popular methods can be found in the Ringers’ Dairy, but for advanced ringers wanting to ring something out of the ordinary today there is a very useful piece of ringing software known as Methodmaster. Once it is installed on your computer, you simply have to type in the name of the method you want to ring, click in the appropriate place and – hey presto! – the method appears on your screen. Wonderful! But it was not always like that…..

In the past, before the days of Methodmaster, the Central Council periodically published tables of methods that had been rung. The information was given using a system called ‘place notation’. You can see place notation if you look in your Ringers’ Diary at, for example, Cambridge Surprise Major. The figures written at the left hand side of the first lead show in which position places are being made; a ‘x’ indicates that all the bells cross over. So, in times past, if a ringer did not know the method for a peal attempt, (s)he would be given the place notation and would work the method out from that. The Central Council’s list of methods that had been rung contained hundreds of methods. The numbers of the different place notations filled the pages on which they were printed. The book was A4 but in the landscape orientation.

On one occasion, a band was assembled to ring a ten bell peal in a method none of them had ever rung before. All started well, everyone had obviously learned the method. But, suddenly there was a crunch as two bells clashed together. Whoops! Someone had made a mistake. Then all settled down again, but soon there was another crunch – the same ringer was involved. One of the other ringers shouted “Three pull dodge with me, Fred”. Fred shouted back “There isn’t a three pull dodge in the method I’ve learned!” The band stood. A quick check showed that Fred had copied out the wrong method – either the one above or the one below the correct one! Luckily on that occasion, it was a simple matter for him to learn the method that everyone else had learned – after all the methods were nearly identical! Success came at the second attempt.

Pat Halls

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A Stranger bearing gifts – The Conclusion

At seven o’clock on Friday 19th December, seven people met at St Peters Derby to ring a quarter peal of Stedman Triples. Well, in point of fact there were nine people really, but two of them were not there to ring.

Alan Inckle had contacted me some weeks earlier, had visited our practice several times, and we had agreed to arrange a quarter peal to celebrate the centenary of the first peal of Stedman rung in Derby at St Andrew’s church on 19th December 1903. Alan’s grandfather had rung the tenor in that peal and we had arranged for some of our regular Friday quarter peal band to come along and ring a quarter of Stedman with Alan on the tenor.

We had contacted the Derby Telegraph and provided them with information and they had suggested that they send along a photographer. Gill, whose life at that time of the year was totally dominated by the Scout Association’s stamp and deliver scheme and had not expected to be able to spend enough time away from the collecting, sorting, distributing and other logistical tasks inherent in such an operation to appear in the photograph, was one of the first to arrive. Alan arrived with his wife, Sue. The photographer, with his assorted equipment found his way into the church and struggled up the spiral staircase with it. And still we had only seven ringers. We located a mobile ‘phone, and called our absent friend to discover that the individual concerned had left twenty minutes earlier – about the time that we were supposed to meet. Eventually our tardy member arrived, not having realised that an early start had been organised. The photographer took lots of pictures, struggled manfully with his equipment on the stairs, and we were ready to make a start.

In order to settle any nerves and ensure that there was likely to be no confusion regarding the groups of bobs, Pat gave us a little pep talk ending with an exhortation to maintain our concentration to the end, saying that even if the first four parts went well it was still easy to lose Stedman in the final part. A pronouncement worthy of Cassandra, in retrospect I wish that she hadn’t said it. The fourth part-end came up beautifully, then in the second course of the last part – crunch. We did manage to get it sorted out, but did not realise until later that two bells were crossed over. Needless to say, the celebrations in the pub were somewhat muted.

However a fortnight later a rematch was arranged and this time with no preliminary aggravation or stress an excellent quarter peal was achieved, a credit to all concerned and a much more fitting celebration of what one hundred years ago was a notable feat for a Sunday service band.

Derby St Peter, 2 Jan. 1260 Stedman Triples:
Chris Willis 1, John Cater 2, Gill Hughes 3, Mike Banks 4, Graeme Hughes 5, Alec Humphrey 6, Pat Halls (C) 7, Alan Inckle 8.
Rung to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a peal rung at St Andrew’s church as the first peal of Stedman Triples in Derby.

Alec Humphrey

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Horsley & Arthur Ashby Cups - A REMINDER!

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NEW MEMBERS Meeting

All ringers elected to the Association during the last twelve months and their sponsors will be especially welcome at this meeting.
A good proportion of the ringing will be arranged around them.
PLEASE COME ALONG!

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Are You up to Date?

An eagle eyed ringer has noticed that most of the email addresses on the Association website are out of date.

If you are happy to have your details on the web, please check and send any changes to our Web Master, Anthony Cotton.

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Go to Derby Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers