In order to explain how to move in from plain hunting to Plain Bob, it will first be useful to define a number fo terms.

'front':
the bell which rings first is in front. In rounds this will always be the treble, and in plain hunting each bell takes its turn to ring two blows at the front.

'the lead':
synonymous with the 'front'. The bell at the front is the bell in the lead, or the bell which is leading.

'the back':
the bell which is following all the others is 'at the back', or 'ringing behind'. In plain hunting each bell takes its turn to ring two blows at the back.

'up' and 'down'
going 'up' means hunting from the front, or lead, to the back; and going 'down' means hunting from the back towards the front. Ringing textbooks tend to use the analogy of a staircase which one moves up and down. I prefer to extend this analogy to a theatre, especially a steeply-raked lecture theatre, or a sports stadium, in which one clearly comes down to the front, and goes up to the back. In each case you can only move one step at a time -- no running up or down two steps at a time in bellringing!

'cover':
Some methods are rung on an even number of bells; other methods are rung on an odd number of bells. When ringing on an odd number of bells it is usual (and in some cases required by the rules) to have an extra bell, the heaviest, ring after each change, i.e. after all the bells ringing the method.

'hand stroke' and 'back stroke':
Alternate pulls of the rope are 'hand strokes' and 'back strokes'. The reasons for this are to do with how the rope is attached to the wheel, but for our needs we will say two things. First, the hand stroke is rung with both hands on the sally, the soft, coloured cotton woven into the rope about 6 feet from the end; whereas the back stroke is rung with both hands at the end of the rope and sally some 6 feet up in the air. Secondly, once the bell is rung up, ringing always commences with a hand stroke, and methods always begin at the next hand stroke. Similarly methods always end on a backstroke and come back to rounds at the next handstroke.

For present purposes I don't think we need to worry much about the difference between hand and back strokes, but as it will probably get mentioned somewhere along the line we might as well explain the difference.


How many bells are ringing?

Bellringers have a number of peculiar terms to describe how many bells are ringing the method:

Minimus: 4 bells
                   Doubles: 5 bells
Minor: 6 bells
                   Triples: 7 bells
Major: 8 bells
                   Caters: 9 bells
Royal: 10 bells
                   Cinques: 11 bells
Maximus: 12 bells
                   Sextuples: 13 bells
Fourteen: 14 bells
                   Septuples: 15 bells
Sixteen: 16 bells
                   Octuples: 17 bells


In the odd-bell methods the term describes the number of pairs of bells which change places: so in Doubles 2 pairs of bells change places, in Triples 3 pairs, in Caters 4 pairs, and in Cinques 5 pairs.

Very, very few towers have more than 8 bells, so one rarely comes across anything higher than Major. And Minimus is rarely rung as being too trivial -- there are only 24 possible combinations.


simon