Following the practice at Over Pulling one Friday, the ringers retired to their usual pub, the Aching Arms. The tower captain of Over Pulling, Marlene Spike, thought this was a good opportunity to explain to one of her band, Bob Doublesday, the way that Call Changes are performed in the well known Call Change county, Greater Manchester {Should be Devon}. She said that it was the custom to ring the bells down before each piece and then ring them up again afterwards {They ring up first and then down afterwards as part of the piece}, but that the conductor would nevertheless call each change at backstroke as they do everywhere else {Everyone calls them at handstroke}.

    Marlene then explained that they used predefined sets of calls, or "quarter peals" {They are known as "peals"}, and she decided to teach Bob how to call the one known as "Eighty On Thirds" {Sixty on Thirds}. This, said Marlene, started with the calls "2 to 3", "4 to 5" and "2 to 5" {It starts with "4 to 5", "2 to 3", "2 to 5"}, to give Tittums {These calls give Queens}, also known as "Thirds" {"Thirds" is Queens, not Tittums}. The Treble was then moved to 5ths place with "1 to 3", "1 to 5", "1 to 4" and "1 to 2" {The last two calls are "1 to 2", "1 to 4"}. At this point Marlene realised that she could not remember any more of it and, being an experienced ringer, needed to bluff her way out of this predicament.

Can you spot the nine errors and unlikely statements in Marlene's understanding of Call Changes?

Gudgeon Pynn.
e-mail Gudgeon at gudgeon@pynn_net.clappers

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