Since completing our 8-spliced project last June, we have turned our attention to another spliced challenge - that of ringing Horton's 4 (Glasgow, Bristol, Belfast, London) in hand.   Well.  After some detours into other little projects and the odd handbell day.

The impetus to get started was provided by the band at our nearby tower in St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow - specifically, a determination to ring Horton's 4 with as much of a local band as we could put together (we had 7, plus several other local ringers learning the methods who did not want to ring a peal).  This attempt was scheduled for 6th December and so the band had been learning or re-learning Glasgow and Belfast in preparation.  Handily, there was a free evening shortly thereafter to attempt the same in hand.  So we set our goal.

Since we were doing that for the tower, we thought we would complement it by learning them in hand as well.  It would make the methods stick that much better.

However, there was another reason for connecting the two attempts.  Our successful peal of 8-spliced followed a similar attempt in tower, using the same composition, and the repitition of the methods the day before substantially boosted our readiness for the handbell attempt.  We were hoping the same magic would rub off.

After attempting to ring, failing to ring, accidentally getting to the end of, and eventually muddling through, quarters of Glasgow over the last four months, a December deadline was looking extremely optimistic.  By two weeks before the tower attempt, we had managed to ring a reasonable quarter of London, Bristol and Glasgow spliced, and got nowhere close to completing a plain course of Belfast.

But, we had the date, and Angela suggested we just go for it and see how far we got.  Last night, that is just what we did. 

How far we got was 3 leads from bringing it round to a quarter peal - so close!  We tried another few times and never settled after that, so retreated to a post-mortem accompanied by wine and cheese.  However, it was the most confident we have been at ringing those methods, and we could see that it was not so far out of reach as we might have thought. 

The key learning strategy of this story could be 'how losing a quarter peal feels like a win' but it's not.  The strategy is the usefulness of tagging what you are ringing in hand to what you are ringing in tower.  All handbell ringers know that learning a method in hand gives enormous insight into method structure and enhances learning in the tower.  We are discovering that the reverse also happens.