Thinking allowed

martyrdom in the Solomon Islands

on Wednesday, 12 November 2003 at 2.34 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as international

ACNS reports that the funer­als have taken place of the sev­en mem­bers of the Melane­sian Broth­er­hood who met their deaths earli­er this year in Guadal­canal (see reports here and here).

Post mortems indic­ate that Broth­er Nath­aniel Sado was tor­tured and died from the wounds inflic­ted over sev­er­al days. Of the six Broth­ers who went to invest­ig­ate his dis­ap­pear­ance, three were shot and killed upon arrival, and the oth­er three were beaten and tor­tured and then shot the next day.

The report describes the funer­al of Br Robin Lind­say, atten­ded by the fam­il­ies of the murdered Broth­ers, as well as the Gov­ernor Gen­er­al, the Prime Min­is­ter, and also the Arch­bish­op and hun­dreds of others.

May they rest in peace!

bobbing along

on Monday, 10 November 2003 at 9.59 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing

After a few more weeks prac­tising ringing the no 2 bell at Bob Doubles, I have for the last couple of Mondays been try­ing to ring a dif­fer­ent bell. Tonight I was ringing the num­ber 5 bell, which has the advant­age of only hav­ing to look one way (except when lead­ing off the ten­or cov­er). Then after a couple of plain courses a bob was called, and I had to cope with this alter­a­tion to the pat­tern. First time was easy, because I knew what to do — instead of mak­ing 2nd’s place, con­tin­ue plain hunt­ing up to the back, down to the front, and make 2nd’s next time. Then a bob was called when I was dodging 3/4 up, and I was lost com­pletely. Appar­ently I should have made 4th’s, then plain hunted back to the lead and dodged 3/4 up next time. I’ll have to check this — I fancy I might get asked to do some­thing sim­il­ar on Wed­nes­day! [Cor­rec­tion: after mak­ing 4th’s, I should have hunted down to the lead, and next time lain four blows in 5th place; that is, by mak­ing 4th’s place you become the bell that is dodging 3/4 down, and that bell’s next vari­ation from plain hunt­ing is four blows at the back. Got that?]

In oth­er bell­ringing news, our cap­tain has indic­ated his inten­tion to stand down, which means I get to be cap­tain. Gulp.

[Update: at a ringers’ meet­ing held before prac­tice on 8 Decem­ber, I was elec­ted tower cap­tain, and Chris Armes as new vice-captain.]