I'm away on a short business trip this week, but the rest of the band were available on Monday, so I left them an assignment: to name Springboig Surprise Major by ringing a quarter of it, which they duly did. The diagram above is from CompLib.org. I've been wanting for a long time to ring a new method and give it a local name. Springboig is the tiny district of Glasgow in which Albany Quadrant is located. It's not a well-known name and to be honest I'm not sure exactly where the boundaries are. There's a Springboig Road and a Springboig Avenue, and the name appears on a couple of road signs locally, but that's about it. A few years ago I had a candidate for a new method, which is now called Remus Surprise Royal, but at that time we didn't have a regular ten-bell band and weren't in a position to ring it. The method that's now called Springboig is one we need for a spliced project, which I hope to report on soon. It's Yorkshire except when the treble's in 7-8, with plain hunting at the lead end, and all right-place, so it's not too difficult. The place bell order is different from Yorkshire, and the line is noticeably different with turning round in 3rd and 6th place, but at least when the treble gets back down to 5-6, one returns to a familiar Yorkshire pattern. We had a practice during the handbell day a week ago, so at least I have rung it myself even though I wasn't in the quarter.
The composition was a variation of one that we ring for Cornwall. The basic idea is five befores, with some homes for padding. For Cornwall it's five befores and three homes, then usually we move one of the homes to the beginning so that 3-4 as well as 5-6 are coursing for most of the block of befores. In Springboig the length of a course with a home is only two leads, compared with four leads in Cornwall, so the padding needs to be six homes (bob bob single, bob bob single) instead of three. Again starting with a home gives 3-4 more coursing.
So, well done to the band!
