Yesterday we rang my 600th peal - not one of the conventional high-profile landmarks, I know, but according to the PealBase crystal ball I'll be 77 by the time I get to 1000, so in the meantime I'll celebrate whatever I can.
At some point I came up with the idea of ringing 5600, so then the question was what to ring. It's the full length of Middleton's classic composition of Cambridge, which we could alternatively have rung to a different method such as Yorkshire or London. It's also the length of 25-Spliced Surprise Major all-the-work, for example Jonathan Porter and Roger Baldwin's extension of Norman Smith's composition, which adds Belfast and Hereford. That seemed a bit too difficult, although it could be a good project for another time, because as far as I can tell it has only been rung on handbells twice, in 1988 and 1990.
A good middle ground seemed to be this composition of spliced Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland by Robert Brown.
5,600 (5,152, 5,056) Spliced Surprise Major (4 methods) Robert D S Brown 23456 M W H Methods ------------------------------ 43652 - CNC.YNNN 56234 - - NCN.C.YCC 23564 - - YYYY.CYY. 52364 - CNNNNYC. 35264 - RRRRRRR. ------------------------------ 5 part. Contains 1600 Lincolnshire (N), 1440 Cambridge, Yorkshire, 1120 Rutland, with 62 combination rollups, 89 changes of method, all the work. For 5152, omit 3H and associated leads in one part. For 5056, call Before for MMWW and omit associated leads in one part.
It's the calling of Middleton's, and would usually be shortened in the same way as Middleton's, but we rang it in full. I wouldn't be surprised if ours was the first full-length performance of the composition.
We did well - the last three parts especially were really good. Compared with our first peal of these methods, in 2011, it's satisfying to see how far we have come. Also it was satisfying to score at the first attempt, so that it didn't become a project.
After we had finished, imagine my surprise when Angela said "Don't put the bells away - we have to ring a quarter now!". It seems that she, Jonathan and Tina had discussed ringing a quarter for the birth of Matt and Jessie Hetherington's daughter, but they hadn't got around to telling me. They wanted to ring Glasgow (and we are doing the same again this evening in the tower - Matt and Jess are former members of the Glasgow band). We haven't rung Glasgow for ages, and after a short false start we decided that we would have to ring a little slower and very carefully. We did that, and rang an excellent quarter, although I don't think it was much quicker than we will ring it in the tower (and for those who don't know, Glasgow are 32cwt).
And yet another landmark: recently, Emma Southerington and Bill Croft simultaneously rang their 1000th handbell peals. According to PealBase, only 19 people have reached that total. Emma has conducted 562 handbell peals and Bill has conducted 626, which must put both of them high up the leader board for handbell conducting. That can be a topic for a future blog.