What do a garage in Keele, Staffordshire, and a garage in Little Eaton, Derbyshire, have in common? Firstly, like many other garages, neither of them houses a car. Secondly, in common with very few other garages, they both house a ring of bells. There are other similarities – both rings have similar origins. In the 1950s, Arthur Jopp collected old school bells which were tuned by Paul Taylor and installed in the family house in Stoulton, Worcestershire, initially a ring of six and then augmented to eight. Later they were replaced by ten former carillon bells which, augmented by two trebles cast by Arthur, formed the basis of the current ring. In the late 1970s I and my wife Rowena began to collect small bells, and by 1992 five of them, augmented by a new Eijsbouts bell, hung in the garage at Woodlands, Keele. Two of these bells were tuned by Andrew Higson at Taylors, and when Matthew Higby and Richard Bowditch cast two trebles to make a ring of eight, they too were tuned by Andrew.

Another feature shared by the two rings is that, unlike most of the other small rings, the bellhanging was done by their owners, and it was done to scale rather than with over-large wheels and bells hung out. I was fortunate to have been able to consult Arthur Jopp when I began hanging the Woodlands bells, and received much advice and encouragement, particularly in connection with counterbalanced clappers, which are necessary with bells of this weight in order to achieve correct clappering. These bells are approximately half the size of conventional bells, and because a bell is a three-dimensional object, about one- eighth of the weight. When Alan Hughes saw a photo of the Woodlands bells assembled in their frame on the floor of the garage, his reaction was this is a proper ring of bells – see photo

After Arthur’s death his bells were inherited by his son Paul, who installed them in the garage of his and Ruth’s house at Little Eaton, with Arthur’s two trebles replaced by two supplied by Matthew Higby. Both this house and Woodlands are semi-detached, with the difference that at Woodlands the garage is as far away from the attached house as possible, whereas at Little Eaton the garage has a party wall with the garage of the house next door. As a result. we have never had a problem with our neighbours, who can tell there is ringing only by the number of cars on the drive. In contrast, the Jopps’ neighbours have been much more aware of the bells, not least when Paul was inserting a lifting beam into the party wall and discovered it was only one brick thick. The Little Eaton bell frame is supported on RSJs and wood beams built into the structure, whereas the Woodlands frame is free standing, supported on four steel pillars. The Woodlands garage was built with the bells in mind, but Paul had a harder job fitting the bells into an existing building with a pitched roof, in contrast to the flat roof at Woodlands.

The two sets of bells are very different in their tuning. Having come from a 1927 Taylor carillon, the St Oulton bells are perfectly in tune, whereas the bells at Woodlands have hum notes with the correct intervals but nominals which have errors, in one case two adjacent bells the wrong way round. The Woodlands clappers have balls made of nylon, with the result that it is the hum notes which dominate, giving the further advantage that the bells sound bigger than they are. Although they are both modern Taylor bells the two tenors have almost the same note but markedly different weights – Woodlands 1895 Hz and 103 lb, Little Eaton 1845 Hz and 151lb. This is probably explained by the fact that the Woodlands bell was cast as a stock bell whereas bells cast for the top end of a carillon tend to be thicker. Also, the Woodlands tenor was tuned down almost a semitone to fit in with the other bells, and consequently it has a wonderfully durable hum.

The original frame at Woodlands had a conventional six-bell layout, but the augmented eight are in a non-standard frame, which nevertheless provides an almost perfect rope circle. Arthur made individual frames for the Stoulton installation, which gave Paul quite a lot of freedom when the bells were moved, but the constraints of fitting twelve bells into the garage did result in a slightly non-ideal rope circle, with several of the middle ropes in a straight line. A further very obvious difference between the two rings is the length of the tail-ends. Although the wheels are about the same size, I put the Woodlands garter holes lower on the wheels than with full-size practice to give a longer handstroke and facilitate control, with the result that the backstroke is correspondingly shorter, requiring less rope.

Both rings of bells have been well used. When the Little Eaton bells, renamed the St Oulton Campanile after relocation, were in their original home over fifty peals were rung on them, and this has continued with almost that number in Derbyshire. Peal ringing at Woodlands began slowly, but accelerated after my retirement in 2000 so that the peal total, mostly rung by a weekly band, is now approaching five hundred. Paul and Ruth have been ringing with the Woodlands band for several years, with occasional return visits, and in 2021 we agreed that Woodlands Wednesday would go to St Oulton once a month, which is turning out to be a very good arrangement.

St Oulton has received a number of visiting peal bands, partly to enable the twelve-bell box-tickers to complete their lists, but this is less the case with a ring of eight. But Woodlands has been visited by a number of well-known peal bands, including the St Martin’s Guild, SRCY, Colin Turner’s band, the Around Ringers and Derbyshire Peal Week.

Bells at home always involves a certain amount of work-in-progress. At St Oulton, a bell cast by Arthur in 1987 has been tuned by Matthew to become a flat sixth – every ring of twelve needs a light eight, and maybe an extra treble will follow. Work at Woodlands is mainly routine and emergency maintenance on an ageing installation, and also on the building. In 2021 the garage received a new flat roof and a new door to the ringing chamber, eliminating the draughts which had plagued the back end ringers for some time. The St Oulton fittings are mostly older than those at Woodlands, and Paul has done quite a lot of modifications since he installed the bells, including a new wheel for the tenth made by me. There are no plans for augmentation at Woodlands – for many years I didn’t think there was room for eight, and the trebles were only just fitted in.

Looking back I think we were very lucky to have been able to put together the Woodlands ring in the way that we did. The full story of the project can be found on the front page of The Ringing World for October 16th 1992. The first six bells that we collected, including the new fifth, were an acceptable six, although when the bells were hung two of them were replaced by better bells which came along just in time. I thought it would not be possible to do the same again, but being an inveterate bell collector I bought more bells which were able to be tuned into a 62 lb six, now being remodelled into a 50 lb six, for which I have already made headstocks and clappers. And I have some usable second hand wheels, the ones I made forty years ago for Peter Shipton’s light ring at Nairn, now being remodelled with bigger wheels. I also think I was incredibly lucky that, with no experience of bell hanging apart from one bell hung experimentally on the Woodlands landing, everything worked pretty well first time. But no particular credit to me, I just copied what I had seen in many towers, but half the size. Initially I was a bit too obsessed with scale, and the first set of ropes were uncomfortably thin, but the current set, made by Avon ropes, are much better. The hanging style at Woodlands was repeated on the Lichfield Diocesan Mobile Belfry, and although these bells are not to everyone’s taste, they are perfectly ringable.

We were fortunate to have been able to acquire bells fairly easily. The first few were ones we heard about on the grapevine, but later I bought several on ebay, although some sellers there are becoming quite ambitious in their price expectations. For a while Taylors were selling replica fire engine bells, of which several sets have been hung, but I’m not sure if they are still available. And of course Matthew Higby is the acknowledged expert in the supply and hanging of small bells, so anyone contemplating having their own small ring has quite a lot of choice. Over the last forty years I have been very fortunate to have friends with much better workshops and skills than I possess, and without their help none of my bellhanging would have been possible.

Arthur Jopp was fortunate too, in that after he had his first ring tuned by Paul Taylor they became good friends, so that Paul was able to offer him the ten carillon bells to replace the original mixed ring. Most of the light rings now in use have a markedly different hanging style from Woodlands and St Oulton, and anyone contemplating building their own small ring might do better to take advice from Matthew Higby than from me. As more and more rings of this weight are installed, it will be interesting to see whether any of them follow the example of these two pioneering rings and produce a true-to-scale installation.

Phil Gay

In an article entitled Minimum Gauge Belfries, which was published in The Ringing World on April 1^st 2016, I identified twenty-nine rings of bells in what I call the light category, with tenors between 25lb and 2.5cwt, of which only about a dozen are pealed more than occasionally. Of these, the most prolific are Keele (Woodlands), Dordrecht (‘t Klockhuys) and Church Lawford (Plantagenet), all of which have regularly appeared in the top twenty-five towers. and between them account for two thirds of all the peals rung on bells of this weight. Another thing these three towers have in common is that none of them have been active for very long, less than thirty-three years in all cases. But in that time they have accumulated impressive peal totals, and Woodlands has recently become the first to reach 500.

There are currently 67 towers, including one micro-light, Pig-le-Tower (now relocated as the Piglet Belfry), with at least 500 peals,  most of which have a fairly long peal-ringing history. An important factor in the number of peals rung at a tower is the number lost, and in this respect Woodlands is far from typical. Our regular Wednesday band typically loses about half of its peal attempts, with the result that our annual peal total is usually around twenty – high but not very high by modern standards. A feature which we share with Plantagenet is that quite a lot of our peals do not use all of the bells.  Woodlands was a six-bell tower for its first few years, and we have continued to enjoy ringing minor since augmentation, with the result that slightly more than half of the peal total is of minor.

Full details of the peals and those who rang in them can be found on the Felstead database, Bellboard, peals.co.uk, pealbase and the Staffordshire Peals website, without which this piece could not have been written.

For the first peal, in December 1992, we had a family band (Rowena, me, my son Simon and daughter Sally) augmented by Bob and Ruth Smith, who had been very supportive of the project and supplied two of the bells, one second-hand and the other new. These formed a very well-tuned back end which made up for some of the deficiencies elsewhere in the ring. We rang Cambridge Minor, and after a couple of very short false starts caused by handling mishaps, we rang a remarkably good peal. The next two peals were both on the same day, in June 1993. Simon was by this time a student in London, and he brought a mixed band to ring a peal at Newcastle in the morning, after which we split into two bands which both rang peals of Surprise Minor at Woodlands. 

There was one more peal in 1993, then in the following year peals became more frequent,  

mostly by a Friday evening band (we all still went to work then) but also with some notable additions. In May 1994, on the Saturday of the Stafford Central Council weekend, CC members Matthew Higby, Roger Bailey and Peter Shipton joined three locals for a peal. We were very pleased to welcome Peter, as he was a member of the bells-at-home club, and I had made the wheels for his bells.  In 1993 when Peter was in England for the Central Council meeting we had lost a peal at Woodlands after having rung one at Grace Dieu. In August six tutors from the Keele Summer School rang a peal on their day off, which was notable because it was the only peal rung on the bells by a resident band – they had all slept in the house the previous night. This was Stephanie Pattenden’s 950^th peal, and she said afterwards that a peal hadn’t made her so nervous for a long time. Jim Belshaw, for reasons that were not revealed, wore a cap throughout, and it nearly made him miss his sally when the rope touched its peak. Fortunately we don’t have any rules penalising ringing in a hat. November 1994 saw a visiting band from the St Martin’s Guild ring a brisk peal, and the first of what have become annual attempts for SRCY peal weekend.

There were only three peals in 1995, all in at least twenty surprise minor methods conducted by Brian Burrows. The six peals in 1996 included one by Summer School tutors and nine in 1997 included two on SRCY weekend, one by a local band and one by a visiting band on its way to Ireland. In 1997 we had another bells-at-home visiting band which included Tom and Margaret Chapman and Frank Price. 1998 had only five peals, and 1999 was sparse because the bells were dismantled pending augmentation to eight, which involved extending the frame and moving all the bells to new pits. 

Augmentation to eight came about as a result of a combination of a number of factors. Rowena Gay had been a crucial supporter of this project from its inception, and her peal ringing career had been revived on these bells following an interruption caused by carpal tunnel problems. She was heard to say that she fancied ringing eight-bell peals again, and Matthew Higby told us he had patterns which would enable him to supply two suitable trebles. Having for a long time thought that there wasn’t room for more bells, I realised that it would be possible, with a non-standard frame layout, to fit in two trebles, and a legacy from an aunt enabled us to afford it. My father had also died not long before, and the new bells were cast with in memoriam inscriptions

Advantage was taken of the removal of the bells to fit ball bearings, which saved me the tedious task of oiling the bearings every time we rang. Peal ringing was resumed in September 1999 with two in a weekend. The first was minor on the back six, arranged so that Gordon Halls, who was advising on the Wormhill rehang, could experience small bells, and then the first on the eight. Tim Davis conducted Yorkshire with a band which included Matthew Higby.  We were still getting used to the eight, and at 2hrs 24 this was the slowest peal yet.

I retired from full-time work in 2000, and this was the most prolific year yet, with eleven peals. This was the year when Norman Sherratt first rang with us. He took to the bells instantly, and, by then in his seventies, was able to have a very productive Indian summer as a regular member of the band, ringing fifty-two peals in five years. He was the first example of an important function of light rings – they enable ringers who are no longer comfortable on conventional bells to continue ringing peals. Now in my eighties, I am also in this category.

With my retirement came the weekly Wednesday morning attempts, twenty-two of which were successful in 2001. We were still ringing a lot of minor, but there were six of Surprise Major, four conducted by Michael Maughan and one, the first SRCY eight-bell peal, by Pat Halls.  Seventeen peals in 2002 included the first of a very small number of peals of Grandsire Triples on the bells, and in December a peal of Cambridge Major to mark ten years of peal ringing at Woodlands. This band, conducted by Bob Smith, included Matthew Higby who had supplied the trebles, and Andrew Higson who had tuned them and two of the other bells.

As more of my contemporaries retired, the band became bigger and stronger, and over the years we have rung some very pleasing peals. All of the standard eight plus Glasgow and a number of other major methods, spliced including variable hunt, and a growing repertoire of Spliced Surprise Minor. We gradually worked up to the forty-one, which when we first rang it was not spliced throughout, and have now rung it 29 times. When we started, the only way that forty-one all the work could be rung was in ten extents, which we did. We also rang John Warboys’ fifty-two method composition which included the otherwise regular single-change methods. Later on a band which did not include me rang his 5760 all the work forty-one spliced. Richard Pearce’s whole course forty-two spliced, which includes a number of irregular methods, took several attempts, one of which was lost very near the end while ringing Norfolk.

During this century we have averaged about twenty peals a year, which given that we meet almost weekly shows what a low success rate we have. This is partly because we are fairly ambitious in what we attempt and also because we are an ageing band who have senior moments, including occasional handling mishaps. We are very fortunate to have several very competent conductors in our group. Michael Wilshaw has called more peals (over 200) on the bells than anyone else, and Tim Davis, Phil Gay, Paul Jopp, Nick Green, Brian Burrows, Simon Humphrey, Ray Ballard and Dennis Latham have also made strong contributions. Michael Maughan and Pat Halls both called a number of our peals before they left the area. Michael and Richard  Angrave have called a dozen between them, Stuart Hutchieson has called five, Roger Bailey, Simon Gay, Frank Morton and Bob Smith have called two and there is a long list of distinguished conductors with one each: Tom Chapman, Paul Curtis, Peter Ellis, Bernard Groves, Matthew Higby, Matthew Hilling, David Hull, Roy Le Marechal, Brian Mountjoy, Jack Page (who came to our rescue and called the forty-one at two days’ notice when Michael Wilshaw fell ill), Bernard Taylor, and Michael Trimm. In March 2023  Steve Askew achieved his first as conductor with his hundredth peal. Roger Bailey, who rang eleven peals on the bells, was a good friend of Woodlands, and in his retirement he would sometimes get the 7am train from Euston to Stoke to arrive in time for our morning peals. After a peal which he called he said he had never rung Yorkshire so fast, even on handbells.

Given the age of most of our group, it is not surprising that several of us have had time out for surgery – Dennis Latham (new knee), Phil Gay (new hip), Michael Wilshaw and Paul Atkins (both major heart surgery) are all now fit and well again, although Dennis does not ring regularly any more, but there will no doubt be further absences in the future. Rowena Gay, who has rung over one hundred peals on the bells, no longer rings peals because of difficulties with her wrists and hearing. We have also lost six regulars though death. Ralph Mitchell was a regular member of the band for almost twenty years until his sudden death in 2013. Norman Sherratt and Michael Orme were both in their seventies when they began ringing with us, and both enhanced our band considerably. Ian Taylor, who rang 54 peals on the bells, died in 2022 after a long illness prevented him from ringing, and John Scott also died in 2022, having rung 41. Jean Nixon died in February 2024, having been a strong supporter of Woodlands ringing for over ten years.

In common with other towers, we had a long lay-off in 2020/21, with only five peals in 2020. For a while, when there was no ringing at Keele, Ro and I rang call changes and plain hunt on three every Sunday. August 4^th 2021 marked the resumption, with a peal of Cambridge Major which showed signs of the gap but which we were pleased to get. We then lost several peals due to band rustiness but rang one more in the autumn, so that by the end of the year the peal total had reached 472, with more lost than rung in 2021. And only two of those rung were on a Wednesday, the other two being anniversary peals for the firsts of Superlative and Glasgow.

Suggest you break here if you need to.

2022 didn’t start until January 12th,  but we should have started the year well with two in that week, the extra being another anniversary peal. But the second peal had to be postponed because of a positive covid test, the first time this had happened, and the re-arranged attempt was not successful.  Our first peal of the year was not rung until the end of February, with another the following week and then a couple of losses. Progress continued to be slow, and there were several weeks when too many people had better offers. But we reached an un-footnoted 475^th peal on March 23^rd and after a three-week gap we rang a peal of minor in Easter week and another two in May. After that we had various failures and cancellations and didn’t ring another peal until July 13^th. Peals continued to be sparse, with two in July and two in August. In September we were pleased to welcome Steven Horton for his first ring with us. He will go some way towards replacing Ray Ballard and Anne Orme, both of whom have moved away. 

In the autumn of 2022 there were two more anniversaries to mark, the centenary of the house and the thirtieth anniversary of the first peal on the bells. Five years ago we rang a peal of 25-spliced surprise minor, but we haven’t managed anything that ambitious for quite a while. For the centenary I originally thought a 5100 of an appropriate major method would be good, but again we are out of practice at that sort of thing. But it seems that a 5100 of minor is now an acceptable peal, so that is what we eventually rang, at the end of November, after one lost attempt and one cancelled.

We rang out 2022 with two attempts at the Core Seven, one either side of Christmas. The first was lost with a rope off the wheel, and the second with a missed sally two leads from the end. We had rung over 5000 changes, and we wondered whether in the past an unscrupulous band might have counted it. For bad measure, we lost it again in the first week in January. We rang an extra peal on Monday January 16^th 2023 to enable Frank Morton to complete the calendar of conducting on both tower and handbells.

We had another extra on February 13^th in memory of Bob Smith, who was very supportive of the Woodlands project thirty years ago, and two days later another memorial peal for local ringer David Midgley.  At the end of March we reached what cricketers call the nervous nineties with a peal of Yorkshire, Steve Askew’s first as conductor, and in anticipation of my forthcoming birthday I looked for compositions with 5080 changes. As on many other occasions, I found one of Don Morrison’s, spliced Yorkshire Alliance and Yorkshire Surprise, a very elegant solution. I checked with Don that any composition of Yorkshire Surprise can be shortened by multiples of two by substituting leads of Alliance, which opens up some very simple possibilities.

After three in a row we saw April out with a loss. On May 3^rd we were visited by Barry and Heather Peachey, here to collect stays. The rest of May was sparse, including a day off when the Woodlands band goes to the county show with the mobile belfry.

June 7^th saw my birthday with plans for a peal in the garage and one on handbells, but both were lost and replaced by quarters. Stefan Zientek rang his first peal on the bells on June 21^st, and we managed one more peal by the end of July. Progress continued to be slow, with more peals lost than rung, but by the beginning of September we had reached 495. There were no more peals in September, and October started with a loss caused by me missing my sally, and two weeks later I did it again.

Early in October the editor published a request for articles for the Christmas edition, and I offered him this with the proviso that it might not be ready if our current lack of success was maintained. But then I remembered that I have rung two handbell peals at Woodlands, which would enable us, with a slightly different footnote, to get to 500 a little more easily. On November 8^th we rang our first peal for two months, with the four previous attempts all having been lost with handling mishaps, three of them mine, so it was a peal we were pleased to get. We had a cancellation because of illness the following week, and at the weekend the annual Cumberlands attempt was lost. On Sunday I heard from Simon Humphrey that he was not fit enough to ring on November 22^nd, and with no-one else available that looked like a cancellation. November 29^th ended up as a practice and quarter, and Christmas publication looked unlikely. Turramurra on December 13^th produced only a quarter, and the following week ten-spliced minor was miscalled. We did not ring on December 27^th and for the following week although eight had declared themselves available, there weren’t eight who wanted to ring eight or six who wanted to ring six, so we had another week off. It was becoming obvious that our current way of operating was making it difficult to ring good peals, and on December 27^th Michael Wilshaw circulated a helpful email with possible suggestions of how we might modify our approach in future. Twenty people had received this email, but only eight replied, and six of those eight met on January 10^th to discuss the way forward. We decided to go for a more varied approach with a four-week cycle. One peal of minor and one of major, interspersed with sessions of targeted practice and one or two quarters. This would enable us to introduce more to the group and be more selective with bands. Our first peal attempt of the year on January 24^th was terminated prematurely by a rope off the wheel. I’m not sure if that counts as a handling mishap or mechanical failure. Two weeks later we held the first of our monthly practice sessions, followed on Ash Wednesday by a cancellation and then another practice. 

On February 28^th we rang our first peal for over three months, Cambridge Major in memory of Jean Nixon. At the practice on March 6^th we welcomed the return of Paul Atkins after a long absence for illness, and the following week we rang a quarter of Grandsire Triples after I had miscalled the peal. Progress continued to be slow, with a week off and then two quarter attempts in Holy Week. Both were of London Minor, and we lost one and rang one. A week later we failed to ring spliced minor, followed by another loss on April 10th and then two practices. 

At the end of April I realised that there had been two other peals at Woodlands which I had overlooked. In April 2009 the Lichfield Diocesan Mobile Belfry had been erected on the drive at Woodlands for three peal attempts to mark its tenth anniversary. The North Staffordshire Association’s attempt had been lost, but the Shropshire Association and the Lichfield and Walsall Archdeaconries Society had been successful, so the 500^th at Woodlands had in fact been rung on November 8^th.

We continued to lose peals, and by the end of May had rung only one this year. We rang a peal of Grandsire Triples on June 5^th, which I footnoted as the 500^th tower bell peal at Woodlands. A practice on June 19^th was followed by a peal of Cambridge Minor the next week. On July 3^rd we finally rang the 500^th. We chose a fairly conservative composition and rang a good brisk peal of three-spliced surprise minor.

Although it is less than forty years old, the Woodlands garage has required significant maintenance during the last few years, some of it associated with the building of an adjacent first-floor extension. The felted roof was well past its sell-by date and replaced by a rubber surface, and builder-induced damage to the rendering had been allowing water ingress to the ringing chamber. Replacement of the ringing chamber door provided an opportunity to fit one which opened outwards, an innovation much appreciated by peal bands during the hot summer of 2022. In the spring of 2023 we had a visit from son Simon and daughter Sally whose aim was to clear out some of the accumulated items in the garage (the skip was full by lunchtime), which made access to the ringing chamber considerably easier.

A total of 176 ringers have rung peals at Woodlands, half of them only one or two, but a number have enhanced their peal totals considerably. In my case, just over one third of my peals, 452, have been rung on the bells. Harold Dowler with 298, Ray Ballard with 273, Dennis Latham with 232, Paul Atkins with 155, Rowena Gay with 128, have all rung over one third of their peals at Woodlands, as did Jean Nixon with 105, and Michael Wilshaw with 283,  and Tim Davis with136 are not far short of that.  Ralph Mitchell with185 was a stalwart member of the band until his untimely death and Norman Sherratt, who did not start ringing with us until he was in his seventies, still managed to ring almost a tenth of his peals, 52, on the bells. Also with more than fifty are Ian Friend and Anne Orme with 56 each, Ian Taylor with 54 and Simon Humphrey and Peter Jones not far behind with 48. 

It is fairly well known that, like the Lichfield Diocesan Mobile Belfry, Woodlands bells are hung differently from most light rings. Everything is to scale, half the size of a conventional 8cwt ring. But this does not make the bells difficult to handle once one gets used to them. It would not have been possible to ring five hundred peals on bells which are difficult to handle.

Woodlands is the most prolific tower in traditionally defined Staffordshire. Most of our early peals were rung for the North Staffordshire Association, for which we are the leading tower, but we now ring under the Woodlands Wednesday flag, with just over one hundred peals to date. Woodlands Wednesday does not have a peal fee, nor do we make a charge to visitors, but we have a charity box which is well supported, and we are able to pass on several hundred pounds a year to other (non ringing) charities.

This is the story of a band, or more accurately several bands, as the early peals were rung by occasional bands rather than the same one. But for the last twenty years we have been basically the same band, with the inevitable comings and goings. One of the things that pleases me is that for a while six and now four of us have been ringing together since we were teenagers sixty years ago. Unlike some bands, there have been no fallouts, and we value our socialising as much as our ringing.

The following table shows how seven of the band have rung together over the years.

	Woodlands	Dennis	Harold	Michael	Paul	Phil	Ray	Tim
Dennis Latham	233	423	243	198	128	230	246	77
Harold Dowler	298	62	841	334	199	348	399	152
Michael Wilshaw	283	62	62	901	132	421	307	225
Paul Atkins	155	62	62	62	310	167	178	44
Phil Gay	452	63	63	62	66	1169	318	159
Ray Ballard	273	62	62	62	62	62	921	165
Tim Davis	136	00	77	77	78	78	77	838

The first column shows the number of peals rung at Woodlands. The main diagonal after that shows the number of peals rung by each ringer. The numbers above the diagonal are the number of peals rung together by the row and column ringers, and the two-digit numbers below the diagonal show the years when they rang peals together for the first time.

I wouldn’t want readers to get the impression that the bells are used only for peal attempts. We are pleased to welcome outing visitors, and we also get visiting bands for quarters, some of which are in the box-ticking category. Quite a lot of quarters are also rung after lost peals. If a peal is lost before 10.30, we start again, (one of our very few rules is that we like to be in the pub soon after noon) but if later we go inside for coffee and then, but not always, go out for a quarter in which the ringing is often better than in the peal attempt. I sometimes wonder whether we should meet for coffee before we ring. We have also had some success teaching youngsters who are not yet big enough to ring conventional bells, and with a 3 cwt six at nearby Whitmore there is a nice route into full-size ringing.

Phil Gay