Last weekend I rang a tower bell peal at Guildford, which had originally been planned for June 2020, cancelled because of covid, eventually rearranged for April this year, cancelled again because more and more of the band were catching covid, and now finally scored. I arranged to stay for the weekend in Oxford with Robin and Dorothy Hall and travel to the peal with Robin, and took the opportunity to ask Robin to organise a handbell peal on the Friday evening.

He managed to get a band for Bristol Royal, which we lost after about two hours. I was given an option of calling it, but I decided that with an unfamiliar band I would prefer to just concentrate on ringing by bells. So Mark Bell conducted from 7-8 and I rang 5-6. Robin had found a composition by Graham John which, when rotated (started from a different course end), has the same properties as the Anthony Carter composition that I've written about before. That is, 3-4 ring the 3-4 and coursing positions, while 5-6 ring the 5-6 and 3-4 positions. However, the Graham John composition has far more coursing for 3-4, 75%, which is the maximum for a two-part peal with those properties (I checked with a computer search). Here are both compositions.

5040 Bristol Surprise Royal
Anthony R Carter

M  W  H  23456
--------------
   s  s  54326
s  s  5  23465
--------------
Repeat.
5 = - - s - - 


5040 Bristol Surprise Royal
Graham A C John

M  W  H  23456
--------------
      s- 32456  
s-    s  43256
   s    (53246)
s  s  -  24365
--------------
Repeat.

The Anthony Carter composition is easier to remember and has a few more 4-bell runs (384 vs 370), but I think the extra coursing for 3-4 in the Graham John composition is an advantage. From the point of view of 5-6 there is nothing to choose between them, as the balance between the 5-6 position and the 3-4 position is the same in both cases.

I found ringing 5-6 for the peal attempt quite difficult, and it made me appreciate what I had been expecting Jonathan and Tina to do in the peals we rang earlier in the year. In some ways I found the 3-4 position more difficult than 5-6, perhaps because I had almost 3 courses in the 5-6 position at the beginning of the peal and got used to it.

Ringing with the Oxford band was fairly similar to ringing in Glasgow. There was a lot of collaborative conducting of a familiar kind. Although they have reached a higher peak than we have in Glasgow (Bristol Maximus, although with a few people who weren't in the Bristol Royal), they aren't ringing peals week in week out like the Reading band are, and I think it's fair to say that the Bristol Royal was a challenge for all of us. I felt that the ringing was a little faster than we usually ring in Glasgow, although it's hard to be sure because I didn't time what we rang and it might just have been the effect of ringing an unfamiliar pair.

Overall, an enjoyable visit, and the composition was a useful discovery by Robin.