Today was the (delayed) St Andrews day graduations in the University of St Andrews. The university requested half an hour of bellringing before and after all three ceremonies plus the chapel service – a total of seven 30 minute sessions!
I took this photo of the tower this morning when I arrived on my bicycle – at 8am the sun was not yet up.
As well as the usual methods – from plain hunt, through to grandsire, stedman, Bob minor and a plain course of Cambridge – we did some call changes, and I was pleased to manage calling an extent of 24 plain changes on 4 bells, following the system in Duckworth’s Tintinnalogia (1668)
I found this quite a challenge and my first attempt was not perfect but it was fun to manage it on a second attempt. Each attempt I chose a different hunt bell, and usually allowed 6 blows in each row, which comes round after about 5 minutes.
I’m not sure if I fancy trying the extent on 5 with the same system. It would require about half an hour, and a lot of concentration. We finished the day from 5pm to 5.30, after the final ceremony, instead ringing an extent of Bob minor which was a nice end to a long and stimulating day’s ringing.
More photos and info can be found on the St Salvators Society website.