Freshers’ Tour Saturday – 29th October 2011

On the 29th Oct 2011, the UL set off South across the river on the Freshers’ Tour. This year has seen a large intake of new freshers (13 or 14 I am told?!) so it promised to be a good day. Tom Wood had organised to meet and catch the 10.25 from London Victoria together, but some of us missed this… me being one. Nevertheless we all congregated at St George, Beckenham for 10am. The bells went nicely and we rang Stedman Caters and Yorkshire Royal.

We all caught the tram (I was extremely excited as it was only the second time in my life I’ve been on one) and by 11.30 we were settled in the pub for lunch! It was a standard ‘spoons but being out of central London, the beer was cheaper which went down well … then someone had the great idea of moving on to cocktails…

At 2.30 and advanced party made it on time to the second tower of the day in Mitcham (although not the person who was supposed to be running it). This tower has an interesting way of patching up ropes, with what looked like bandages! We rang Stedman doubles minus a cover before Ben Meyer turned up… still sipping a JD & coke which he had transferred to his insulated coffee mug. Having nearly 3 hours in a pub for lunch probably wasn’t such a great idea … we managed to fire out most things including, I think, call changes. Still we can’t have rung that badly as the lady who unlocked for us had stayed to listen and complimented us on our ringing…

The final tower of the day was a cute 6 in Colliers Wood. Here we rang several things including whole pull Stedman (which was fired out… reoccurring theme?!). After this we headed back into London on the Northern line and ended up in another pub to meet up with the SUGCR who had their freshers’ tour to London on the same day. Finally, a curry was enjoyed by all which was a lovely end to the day.

Thanks to Tom Wood and Lizzy Stokoe for organising the tour!

by Becca Cullen