The Brave Bells

When the church bells of France or Italy ring out in the sparkling air. they are apt to sound joyously at random or to strike the lilting cadence of a set tune. But such lightheartedness seems foreign and effete to English campanologists. Their idea of a rousing time in the belfry is to ring changes--mathematical permutations of a series of carefully tuned bells. To untrained ears, ringing changes sounds like the din of boilermakers at work, but the English love the arithmetical beauty of it all.

Begun as a sport by aristocrats in the 17th century, scientific bell ringing fell into disrepute during Georgian times because it raises a great thirst in a man, and ringers went oftener from the belfry to the pothouse than to the church. But now, change ringing is having a revival, sparked by the interest of mathematicians and scientists.* Last week England was agitated by some big bell news: the attempt by eight veteran bell ringers in the Midlands factory town of Loughborough to set a modern change-ringing record.

Bobs & Sallies. For change-ringing purposes, a set of eight bells (called "Major") ranging from treble to tenor, are numbered one to eight. At the outset of a Plain Bob Major,t the bells are sounded in sequence (known as "rounds"), i.e., 12345678. Then changes are rung: 2143-6587, 24163857, 42618357, etc., through all the possible combinations. To complicate matters further, variations are obtained when the conductor calls for "bobs" or "singles" (two bells swap their places out of sequence or dodge backwards among other bells). Eight bells have been rung to their full "extent" (40,320 changes) only once: in 1751, by relays of 13 bell ringers working for 20 hours straight. But modern competition rules, set by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers as carefully as cricket regulations, forbid the use of relays: only one man to a bell, and he must stick to her (bells, to ringers, are always female) without interruption. Under these conditions, the best that, has been done so far is 21,600 changes (time: 12 hrs. 56 min.), rung in 1950 by a Cheshire team, and it was this mark that last week's octet at Loughborough set out to better. /-More complicated arrangements have more romantic names, e.g., Grandsire Triples, London Surprise, Woodbine, Kent Treble Bob Major, Canterbury Pleasure.

The eight performers (a chemistry teacher, a solicitor's clerk, a printer, a policeman, an Oxford undergraduate, a divinity teacher, a market gardener and a physicist) ate a big predawn breakfast at the King's Head Hotel and, at 4 a.m., climbed the squat red-brick campanile of Taylor's bell foundry. Inside the ringing chamber, the eight ringers strapped a variety of containers to their legs, ranging from hot water bags to bicycle bottles (also known in the U.S. as "motormen's pals"). On shelves around them was a selection of food--chocolate, oranges, bananas, grapes, malted milk tablets and glucose pills (ringers may eat only so long as they feed themselves and keep on ringing). On a back rest behind Tony Jesson, assigned to

No. 3 bell, were six clean handkerchiefs: Jesson was suffering from flu.

At 4:13.10 a.m. the eight men seized their sallies (cotton tufts on the bell ropes) and Conductor Eric Critchley cried "Off!" The round pealed out. Then Critchley had nothing to do except pull his own bell rope until about three minutes later, after 80 changes, he called for the first "bob."

The ringers went on at a cracking pace. At 5:47 a.m. the three watching umpires filled out their first report: "Good, but a little too fast to be healthy."

Heaves & Singles. The town outside lay in surprising quiet (the louvers in the tower were covered). In the ringing chamber, the hours moved toward midday and the variations mounted toward 20,000. The eight ringers still stood in a rough circle, ropes in hand. Their pull was leisurely: a heave first at the loop of the rope and then, when the rope came down as the bell swung over from the set position to make a full circle, each man would make a second smooth pull. Conductor Critchley chewed gum, glanced around now and then, and called out "Bob" and "Single" on schedule. The men looked as though they could go on forever, especially since the bells in Taylor's bell tower are light (many tenor bells, for instance, weigh more than 1 1/2 tons, while Taylor's is only 755 Ibs.).

The score edged over 21,000. Only 600 to go to tie the record. Suddenly there was confusion. Conductor Critchley had missed calling a bob. Some of the bells quickly dodged into the bob on their own, but the rest got lost, and the jangling clangor high in the tower stopped. The three umpires sadly closed the books on the Loughborough attempt. The team had rung 21,088 changes, against Champion Cheshire's 21,600. Said Critchley: "It was silly, really. I was just standing there, wondering how long Tony Jesson could go on. And I completely missed the bob."

Next day the British press gave the ringers their due for a gallant try. Headlined the Manchester Guardian: "EVEREST" UNCONQUERED! Said the London Times:

CASE OF THE MISSING BOB BELLRINGERS

STUMBLE. Crumped the Daily Mirror: OH, HELL'S BELLS ! Critchley and company, not waiting to read their press notices, shared a bottle of whisky and headed for the King's Head pub, determined to win the championship next year.

*Ringing changes on large bells is almost an unknown art in the U.S. One of the few places it is regularly practiced is Kent School, Kent, Conn. To the true bell ringer, the mechanically operated carillon is anathema. "Clocking," whereby a bell is rung by hand, but by pulling a string attached to the clapper and knocking it against the side of a stationary bell, is considered sheer laziness, as is "chiming," whereby the bell is pulled just sufficiently to allow the clapper to hit its side.

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