Quarter Peal - 1260 Plain Bob Minor

The simplest way to call a quarter of Bob Minor is to call a 720 (an extent, i.e. all the possible changes) followed by a 540, and to call this from the tenor. However, for my first quarter of Bob Minor as conductor I knew that I couldn't manage the tenor and concentrate on the calls, so I chose this 1260 in which the 4 repeats the same work six times.

“1260 Plain Bob Minor
Composer: Glenn A A Taylor

2345 W B H
5243 - ss 3

six part
s for - halfway and end
omit ss from parts 4, 5, and 6”

To translate a little first:

- means one bob.
ss means two singles, a course (5 leads) apart.
3 means three bobs, each a course apart. In the 6th and 3rd parts (halfway and end) it’s BBS instead of BBB at this point.

W, B, H refer to the tenor being in the Wrong, Before and Home positions:

Wrong is when the tenor is about to become 5ths place bell (in minor), which for Plain Bob is when it's dodging 5-6 up.
Home is when the tenor is about to become 6ths place bell (in minor), which for Plain Bob is when it's dodging 5-6 down.
Before is when the tenor would run out if a bob were called, which for Plain Bob is when it's about to become 2nds place bell by making 2nds.

Now a little more detail...

It’s a 6 part, so we ring the line given to us above 6 times. In full we get:

23456	W	B	H
5243	-	s s	- - -
3542	-	s s	- - -
3245	-	s s	- - s
5342	-		- - -
2543	-		- - -
23456	-		- - s

The numbers down the left are the lead ends at the end of each part, i.e. the part ends. The lead end is the change at the treble’s backstroke lead. [Actually, this change at the treble's backstroke is called the "lead head", and it is the change at the treble's handstroke lead which is the "lead end". But it is common usage to refer to the backstroke as the lead end.] I worked the part ends out when I went through the lead ends for each part. The tenor doesn’t appear in these because she is unaffected throughout and so always at the end of the change at the part end. As you can see, the 4 is also “back home” at the end of every part, i.e. in fourths place – which is why I chose to call this composition from the 4.

The next thing is to work out the lead ends in at least the first part and also to note how many leads between calls and the work of your bell at each call (which is obviously easiest for the 6 and 4). Also look at which bells make the singles in the first 3 parts and which bells are unaffected at the other calls.

On to Plain Bob Triples.

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