Surprise Major

Half a course (4 leads) of Cambridge, Yorkshire, Superlative, Lincolnshire or Pudsey...
People seldom call touches of Surprise methods at a practice night or for service ringing, but it is quite common to ring half a course of a Surprise Major method. A course is simply a plain course. For Surprise Major this is 7 leads. Since 7 is not divisible by 2, half a course can be 4 leads.

"Go, Cambridge!"
Ring 4 leads
"Plain hunt"
"That's all!"

Suppose you are ringing the 3 for Cambridge S Major. You ring 3rds place bell, 4ths place bell, 8ths place bell, and begin 5ths place bell. The lead end at the end of this fourth lead would be 13527486. Instead you want this to be 12345678 (rounds). To get this, you want everyone to plain hunt instead of dodging at the lead end. Taking your own work (ringing the 3), you are doing Cambridge front work - "dodge, lead, dodge, 2nds, lead, dodge" and then you would make 2nds, which would force everyone behind you to dodge. But you want to hunt into 3rds place so as you dodge back into lead before making seconds call "plain hunt", you run out and then call "That's all!" at the next blow, when you are in 2nds place. Then ring in 3rds place and it should have come round!

You can of course call this from any bell.

Half a course (3 1/2 leads) of Yorkshire, Superlative, Bristol...
In these methods you get backrounds (87654321) exactly halfway through the plain course, i.e. after 3 1/2 leads. So from this point you can ring 8 changes of plain hunt and get back to rounds.

So you start the method as usual and ring 3 and a bit leads of it. Suppose you're ringing the 5 for Yorkshire: You ring 5ths, 2nds and 6ths place bells and start 7ths place bell. You call "plain hunt" at handstroke because it is a change of method (i.e. it is like when you call "Go, Yorkshire" at the beginning of the touch). The handstroke you need is the change before you ring backrounds, which is when the 5 (in the middle of 7ths place bell) rings in 3rds place in the middle of the dodge at the end of the first set of 3-4 places. When you ring in 4ths place on your way up call "that's all" and it should come round at the next change.

Three leads of Bristol...
It is however common to ring three leads of Bristol S Major. To do this you call a bob at the end of each lead. This works because the 5, 6, 7 and 8 all dodge at a bob and repeat the work that they have just done. (You can also say that they repeat the place bell.) The 2, 3 and 4 ring those place bells once each. As in Plain Bob, the calls come the change before the treble leads full, so when the treble dodges back into 2nds place and 2 blows before you become your next place bell.

On to Quarter Peal - 1250 Yorkshire Surprise Major.

Back to Index Page.

Is there something you think I may not have explained as well as I could?
Do you have a suggestion for additions to these pages?
Have you found something that needs correcting?

Then please or fill in this feedback form! Thank you.