Questionnaire

 

Name: Richard Johnston

 

Current Age (needed for understanding trends): 66

 

Are you a Devon Call Change ringer, method ringer, or both? Primarily method, but can ring Devon style fairly well

 

For those who ring method:

 

What ringing methods can you currently ring? Plain hunting / Plain bob or Grandsire Doubles, plain courses/ Plain bob or Grandsire Doubles, touches/ Plain minor methods/ Surprise Minor/ Plain Triples methods (Grandsire/ Plain Bob)/  Stedman triples /Surprise major / Plain Bob/ Grandsire/ Stedman Caters / Plain Royal methods / Surprise Royal methods/ Stedman Cinques/ Cambridge or Yorkshire Maximus/  Bristol Maximus or above

 

Bristol Max+

 

What ringing methods have you rung at some time in the past? Plain hunting / Plain bob or Grandsire Doubles, plain courses/ Plain bob or Grandsire Doubles, touches/ Plain minor methods/ Surprise Minor/ Plain Triples methods (Grandsire/ Plain Bob)/  Stedman triples /Surprise major / Plain Bob/ Grandsire/ Stedman Caters / Plain Royal methods / Surprise Royal methods/ Stedman Cinques/ Cambridge or Yorkshire Maximus/  Bristol Maximus or above

 

Bristol Max+

 

How long had you been ringing when you rang your first quarter peal?: 9 months

 

Approximately how many method ringing quarter peals have you rung?: not sure - probably 200

 

How long had you been ringing when you rang your first peal? 1 yr 9 months

 

Approximately how many method ringing peals have you rung? about 460

 

For Devon Call Change ringers:

 

Have you represented a tower in a Devon Assocation striking competition (top ringing only)?  No

 

Have you represented a tower in a Devon Assocation striking competition (including raising and falling)?   No

 

Recruitment:

 

How did you come to start ringing?  Family activity / church activity / personal invitation/  ringers recuitment campaign / other?

but also provide the details, including what attracted you.

 

church activity/ personal invitation

 

Partly church involvement as I was a member of the church and an altar server.  Also had friends who were at church (and at my school) started ringing 2yrs before I did.  One of them asked me to start then, but I didn't.  He asked me again (at school) 2 years later and I went.  There were 4 ringers in my form, 3 of us at my tower.

 

Were you part of a group of learners who started at or nearly at the same time?  Yes there were 5.  All the others were girls from the secondary modern school, slightly youn ger than me: I didn't know any of them, and I do not know where they had come from.  None of them lasted more than a few weeks.

 

If you were, how many started, and how many were still ringing after a year? 5, 1 (me)

 

How old were you when you started to learn to ring? nearly 16

 

Where did you learn to ring? Trowbridge, Wilts

 

How many bells did hte tower have, and how many did the ringers normally ring at the time you started ringing? 12, normally rang 10, or 8 if not enough turned up

 

Name of person who taught you to handle a bell Ronald H (Jack) Lucas

 

How well did he ring himself?  Tidy style, competant ringer.  In principle a good choice of teacher in terms of personal example.

 

Was he the tower captain?  if not explain: He taught all the bell handling.  Tower captain did not teach handling.

 

Describe as fully as possible his/her approach to teaching you to hand a bell. 

Taught the traditional top way.  Backstrokes first, the handstrokes and then both together on tied bell.  Could handle bell after a couple of sessions. No recollection of learning to ring and up and down, but suspect this happened much later.

 

Did you have training sessions separate from the main ringing practice?  Yes - probably for about 3 or 4 weeks, before being introduced to main practice.  Never had any other tied training or special sessions after that.

 

If so, roughly how many and for how long?  3 or 4 over 3 to 4 weeks.

 

Did you have any further training sessions on your own once you could ring a bell with other people?  If so, what form did this training take? : None, but see note on later corrections

 

Looking back - how well were you taught? Did you have significant handling issues?

 

I was only taught on one bell (5th), which quite small.  I did not hold the tail end correctly, and did not have all my fingers round the sally.  Was not taught anything about changing rope length, or how to make the bell go faster or slower.

 

Name of person who initially taught you to ring with other ringers? 

 

Frank Penn

 

Was he the tower captain or some one else?

 

Yes

 

How long was it before you could ring reasonably reliably in rounds unaided?

 

3 months

 

Were you encouraged to go to other towers' practices, and if so how long had you been ringing when that happened?

 

Yes – 6 weeks

 

Did you go to other practices?  What did you learn as a result of that?

 

Yes – learned to ring on different size bells with different ringers.

 

What proportion of your early learning experiences were a) in your own tower?  b) other towers' practices c) local association meetings and practices?

 

a)      75%

b)      20%

c)      5%

 

How long had you been ringing when you were elected to the local ringing association.

 

7 months

 

As a learner, how much time did you get to actually ring a bell on your local towers'  practice night?

 

Usually at least 50% of time, as ringers were short and I was the only low level learner

 

What did you find difficult about ringing in the early days?

 

Ringing in the right place and knowing who I ought to be following.

 

In retrospect, what do you think they should have done differently?

 

Much more time on basic bell handling – mine was so bad other people got my rope, plus ringing on small number of bells so I got used to idea that ringing was about getting the speed right, not a meytter of who to follow.

 

 

Did other ringers complain about you giving them your rope as a result of the way you handled your bell?  If so, did the tower captain/ trainer do anything to help you deal with this?

 

Yes this was a big problem, as the bell I usually rang was very close to the one on my left.  I had to initiate the actions that eventually fixed it.

 

Did you feel at any stage you were not making progress, but were getting stuck?  If so what seemed to you to be the difficulty?  In retrospect, why do you think you got stuck?

 

Got very stuck because I was ringing by calculation, but they probably didn’t realise I was doing that.

 

Did you at any stage have to start all over again with learning something, because the way you had learned so far and rang so far, was now a barrier to further progress?

 

1)      Bell handling – had to relearn – actually only took an hour or so to fix.

2)      Ringing by calculation – I had to restart frokm scratch on 6 bells to learn ropesight – I had been ringing for 2.5 years when this had to happen, by which I time I could supposedly ring Grandsire, Stedman and Plain Bob up to caters

 

 

Who were significant mentors in your ringing progress, and what did they do for you?

 

Jack Lucas – took me to other towers in earcly phases

 

Marie Cross – retaught me to ring by ropesight

 

Stephen Royal - developed surprise major

 

Jeremy Pratt – 12 bell ringing

 

What is the reason, now, why you ring bells?

 

Musicality, exercise, friendships.

 

What was the reason why you rang bells in the early days of your ringing?

 

Church activity, exercise, friendships.