Yesterday we rang a quarter of Rhodium Surprise Major (diagram from CompLib.org, above), and as I wrote last time, I will explain why later. It's one of the methods named after chemical elements (I believe they were mostly composed by Tony Cox), so we've rung two of them now, the...

Last Monday we finally rang a quarter of Sgurr a' Chaorachain Surprise Royal. It's taken a while - according to the blog, our first practice session was on 19th June 2023. I should say though that we haven't been exclusively ringing Sgurr a' Chaorachain all that time. There have been...

 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...

Yesterday we rang the quarter of cyclic spliced major that I wrote about a little while ago. It was satisfying after two unsuccessful attempts, and we rang it very well. The composition is a miniature version of David Pipe's popular "cyclic six" maximus. Two of the methods were...

We had two handbell peal attempts this week, one successful and one to keep on the list of projects. We tried Grandsire Caters on Monday, but failed about two thirds of the way through when I missed a bob. Grandsire Caters has a lot of bobs! Something like 150 calls...

This weekend was the annual Inveraray Ringing Festival (the 50th event, in fact) which is mostly a lot of tower bell ringing. We always try to fit in some handbell ringing too (photo by Ruth Marshall, right). This year in the main session of general handbell ringing, I made everyone...

Today we rang a peal at Peter Kirton's house in Perth, which thanks to Simon Aves' research we also know was the first peal in the city (there are no tower bells). It was originally planned to be Grandsire Caters, but Ian Bell had to pull out so we rang...

I have finally run out of interviews, so here are my own answers.

Where are you based?

Glasgow, Scotland.

When and where did you learn to ring handbells?

I learned the basics from my dad, Phil Gay, in my early teens. Up to Plain Bob Minor, say. I don't remember...

Where are you based?

Inverness

When and where did you learn to ring handbells?

Tulloch Ringing Centre in 2016, a latecomer to bell ringing at the age of 56. Having never rung previously, I moved from central England to live in Scotland, 1 mile from Tulloch Farm. Despite only having...

Where are you based?

Cambridge

When and where did you learn to ring handbells?

My first experience of handbells was not ringing methods but ringing the handbell part to Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde in a concert, when I was at school. I don't remember actively learning to ring methods on...