Thinking allowed

a golden quarter peal

on Sunday, 29 July 2007 at 8.18 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, peals and quarter peals

Calling Stedman Triples

on Wednesday, 4 July 2007 at 9.37 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, conducting

Sted­man Triples is a meth­od for which I have a par­tic­u­lar affec­tion. When I began to ring it was almost the first meth­od to which I rang the ten­or behind — the double dodging of bells in 6–7 mak­ing it easi­er than many meth­ods to see which bells to ring over. And a couple of years later, in 2004, I began to learn to ring an inside bell.

Now I can gen­er­ally ring touches of Sted­man Triples, cop­ing with bobs (even odd bobs) and (usu­ally) remem­ber­ing all the details of the slow work.

Last week at prac­tice at Hem­ing­ford Grey I called a touch of Grand­sire Triples, and check­ing this touch after­wards in Cole­man, I read on into the next chapter, about call­ing Sted­man Triples. There I dis­covered that actu­ally it was quite easy to call a simple touch. And so tonight when the tower cap­tain sug­ges­ted a touch of Sted­man I asked if I could call it. Choos­ing the 6, I inten­ded to call ‘Two Qs’, that is, to call two pairs of bobs — each pair con­sist­ing of a bob just before going in quick and then in second place after lead­ing. So off we went, and I called the first bob a whole pull too early, and shortly there­after asked for rounds. Off we went ago and this time I got the first two bobs right, ran through the rest of the course and called the third bob, and then it began to go wrong. The two bells in 6–7 appar­ently didn’t hear the call of ‘bob’, and with them awry I landed on the front and went a bit wrong too. Rounds again. Enough for that attempt, so we stood and rang some­thing else.

Later we had anoth­er go. This time we got to the fourth bob, and on past there until I went in slow and there clearly weren’t enough bells on the front! Rounds again, and then try once more: dodge with the 7, then double dodge with the treble, ‘bob’, in quick, ‘bob’, out quick, double dodge up to the back and down again, in slow, out slow, double dodge up to the back and down again, ‘bob’, in quick, ‘bob’, out quick, double dodge up to the back and down once again, in and out slow (nearly there now), double dodge up to the back (we’re going to make it), dodge 6–7 down, and ‘that’s all’ — we’ve done it, and I have suc­cess­fully called a touch of Sted­man Triples. Yay! A real sense of achieve­ment, and smiles all round.