Articles

High Emotions at Molland (1995)

Peter Giles writes:

The newsletter of 1991 contained an article about the efforts of some members of the Society over many years in a Devon call-change competition at Molland, culminating in a certificate for third place. This year we can report a truly colossal achievement - a band of foreigners have won a Devon trophy!

 

The ringing competition at Molland started in 1965, and for many years now it has been established as a senior Devon competition. The trophy, the London Inn Cup, was given by the village pub.

 

The competition is: up in peal Devon style (one, two three and all pitch in together); cartwheel sixty on thirds (Thirds being Queens. You must start 4-5, 2-3 and not 2-3 4-5. Derek Jewell says that once a top band got it the wrong way round and lost sixteen faults); call the treble up and down and walk 3-5-2-4 up a place at each extreme, giving 6 leads; and down in peal. At the bottom, as soon as the tenor is down, Derek calls 'Last one' and we just stop, with the front bells swinging madly and the sallies held in the air to lessen the chances of bells 'chittering', which is not uncommon when the clappers are evidently so well cared for.      

 

Hitherto, there have been fifteen to eighteen teams in the competition. This year (1995) there was a blip and only eleven teams appeared, but they included last year's winners Burrington and one of the top two teams in modern competition ringing, West Down.

 

This year we had our usual weak start on the Friday night practice, but as the local said he could hear us getting better. Next day we decided our best bet was to let Toad get the tenor shifting as fast as he could and drag us up with him; this is in any case the proper way to ring up, but as outsiders we had always tended to rely too much on Derek setting the pace from  the treble, which made us a little hesitant in the rise. At Molland, with its heavy lumpy six, this approach worked very well.

 

On arriving at twenty past three, we were alarmed to find things very quiet, and when we finished twenty minutes later, the pub was shut! We moved on to South Moulton to drink there, but fortunately three of us went back for the results. WE WON!!! This is probably the only time a band of outsiders have ever won a legendary Devon Call-Change Competition. The London Inn Cup is now touring the country, and will be on my dinner table as soon as I get my hands on it. I was privileged to go up and collect it at the presentation, and for the rest of the evening there were five grown men (no Derek, who was now home again) sitting in the pub in Molland and then in Barnstaple blubbering 'Twenty-two years! Twenty-two b****y years! And its ours.. And it's going to have our name on it... For ever...'. (To be fair, Stubbs does not blubber).        

 

For the record:

 

                

                           A SIX-BELL RINGING FESTIVAL

 

       held at St. Mary's church, Molland on Saturday October 21st 1995

 

                           Treble         Derek Jewell                 

                           2nd             Andrew N Stubbs         

                           3rd             Peter G Giles

                           4th              Jeremy R Pratt

                           5th              P Quentin Armitage

                           Tenor          Nigel RD Orchard

 

       First Certificate and the London Inn Cup awarded to the Oxford Society.