Plain Bob Doubles

To call a quarter peal…
You need to call ten 120’s and a 60 (coming to this in a minute) to give you 1260 changes. Your 120’s can be any you like, but it is probably a good idea to ring them in some kind of order (such as 2 unaffected, 3 unaffected, 4 unaffected, 5 unaffected, then repeat all of that and ring two bells unaffected again), so that you don’t lose count!

You also need to call this 60 to make up the changes. There are two possible 60’s: PBPBPB or BPBPBP. What that notation means is that (for the first one) you have a plain lead (i.e. you ring as usual) and then you have a bob lead – i.e. you call a bob! And you do this 3 times. If you are ringing the 4 then it is sensible to call PBPBPB because this means you make 5ths, make 4ths (i.e. make the bob), make 5ths, make 4ths, make 5ths, make 4ths. If you are ringing the 5 then it’s sensible to call BPBPBP because then you make 4ths, make 5ths, make 4ths etc. If you ring another bell you’ll need to work out what you do…

You can ring the 60 when you like. An argument for ringing it first is that if it goes wrong it’s very easy to start again. An argument for planning to ring it last is that if you end up ringing one too many 120’s because something goes wrong then you can just miss out the 60.

If you miss a bob all is not necessarily lost...
You can nest 120's inside each other - so suppose you have begun to ring an extent with the 3 unaffected, but then you miss the second bob. So you wanted to ring PPBP PPBP PPBP, but you've actually got to PPBP PPP... You can call a bob the next lead and begin a new extent before you've finished the last one. So you will get PPBP PP(PBPP PBPP PBPP)BP PPBP.

You could instead nest a 60 inside the 120 which had the mistake. You can do something similar when any bell is unaffected except with the 5 unaffected because in this case you will have already had 4 plain leads and so had a plain course.

Hopefully you won't miss a bob in the first place... but it's nice to know there might be a remedy if you do!

On to Grandsire Doubles.

Back to Plain Bob Doubles - Calling yourself affected.

Back to Index Page.

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