Contagious Places

#bellringing is riddled with jargon. From what we call the bells, its fixtures and fittings, to method types, to what we call pieces of work within a method and much more.  As we start to learn more complex methods, we use some of this jargon to abbreviate parts of methods.  This means that we learn the work within that jargon and can add it to other methods to create different ones. 

I am familiar with things like cats ears (A portion of work with two points upward separated by a whole pull, giving a portion of blue line that looks like cat’s ears, eg making a single in Stedman Doubles) and coat hangers (the opposite piece of work).  Cambridge places (Work consisting of three dodges with intervening pairs of places separating them, all in the same pair of positions), Kent places (Hunting interrupted by two contiguous places (in lieu of a dodge), as in Kent). Long work (An extended portion of work, often on the front or back, often characteristic of a particular method), and various others.

In a recent virtual #bellringing session we were ringing London Scholars’ Pleasure Treble Bob Minor which has bedsprings in the middle (a place, dodge and place) and Kingston Treble Bob Minor which introduced me to the phrase Contiguous places (Successive places made by the same bell (in adjacent places) eg (3rds and 4ths in Kent). At one point in the method someone went a bit awry, and C told them they should be doing “contagious places”, much to everyone’s mirth.

Small wonder it’s difficult to get to grips with the language of bells and bellringing. I’ve been doing it for forty years and yet I still find out new phrases.  They are all meant to help you navigate a method.

If ever your stuck for understanding #bellringing jargon, John Harrison has a great resource at https://jaharrison.me.uk/Ringing/Glossary/L.html#top which has an extensive alphabetical list of words and phrases. His website is a fascinating resource not only for #bellringing jargon, but articles he’s written, talks he’s presented, all mixed with some personal information about his #bellringing career and his other interests in fell walking, metal sculpture and brickwork. It’s not the prettiest of websites but the content is extensive, varied and very well researched.

I urge you to take a look.  You might learn a thing or two. I did!