Bishampton, St James

I visited for the first time on Saturday 26^th January 2008 to join the WDCRA Southern Branch practice. There were about 15 ringers in total. A variety of methods were rung during the evening including Cambridge, London, Grandsire Doubles and Plain Bob Doubles, all of which sounded good to me.

However, there were a number of "touches" of Plain Bob Doubles that were not so tuneful, these were the ones where I was endeavouring to ring bell #3 as the observation bell. I rang on three separate occasions and got better each time though I did not manage to complete a touch without assistance. As the observation bell the "bobs" are called when about to do long 5ths, at first I was having difficulty figuring out which bells I should be following which discomfited me. After the first session I was given two useful bits of advice, the first was to have more faith in the rhythm and not to get to flustered looking for which bells to follow, I took this to heart and it subsequently helped as all the other ringers were very accomplished. The second was to point out that unlike a plain course the bells you follow when doing long 5ths follow a different pattern, the first blow is as normal but the second and third blows are over the same bell and the fourth blow is over yet another. I pondered this during the break and "realised" that this is obvious, even though I hadn't appreciated it, because with a bob someone has to make 4ths! Following this piece of advise also helped. Alas, I never quite made it through a complete changes though I did get close. This was a really good night for me and I felt as if I had made a lot of progress and only needed more practice to finally crack it.

My second visit was on Saturday 10^th December 2011, a cold but bright and sunny day, to ring for a wedding.

We rang before and after the ceremony and included some Rounds and Call Changes as well as touches of Plain Bob Doubles and Grandsire Doubles. The bells are quiet from inside the tower so we rang with the stair door open to give us a little more volume.