Peal Weekend 8th – 10th February 2008

The Annual ULSCR Peal Weekend was held this year between the 8th and 10th of February. Friday night saw no less than three simultaneous attempts of Yorkshire Surprise Major take place, of which one in hand was successful. (The other handbell peal fired out after a valiant effort and the third, tower bell peal was lost after a former master of the society managed to slip wheel!) The evening was spent in the Shooting Star as the UL made sure that any losses were suitably drowned in a sea of Discovery beer.

Saturday morning saw Lucy’s first peal of Surprise in hand scored in Mottingham as well as one of Cambridge Maximus scored at St Sepulchre, including 2 first peals on 12 as well as a first of Maximus, an impressive achievement for all involved. The peal of Grandsire at Waterloo Road was unfortunately lost although a quarter was scored by the band. With no time, even for Rupert, to squeeze in a beer for lunch, the bands all moved on to the afternoon towers.

The afternoon saw a quarter of Superlative at Spitalfields scored after the peal came to grief as well as one of Plain Bob at Chelsea. The afternoon’s peal attempt was one of 6 Spliced Surprise Major seeing both Nick H and Clare score their first spliced peal with both Clare and Andy certainly having the blisters afterwards to prove it!

The evening’s festivities saw everybody convene at the Harp near Trafalgar Square to have a well deserved pint of Harvey’s Best Bitter before moving on for a Chinese at the UL’s regular haunt of Wong Kei’s.

The following day saw Lian score her first quarter peal, ringing Plain Bob on handbells as well as Josie and Jacqui scoring their first quarter of Little Bob. Finally, a peal attempt of Cambridge Royal was scored at Shoreditch.

Overall, the weekend saw 5 peals and 5 quarters scored including no less than 9 firsts of some sort or another. All in all a successful and good fun weekend was had by all. Roll on Peal Weekend 2009!

By Peter Jasper