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David Struckett

The use of the headings for calling positions 'W M H' in Plain bob is usual nowadays, first appearing in a text book in Shipway I believe (1813/16). However, ever since Jasper Snowdon's 'Ropesight' (1879) - in Triples the use of W and M has often been interchanged, because the position of the notated bell is exchanged because of the odd number. (it's more logical to keep the order W,M,H because of l/e order, CO and transpositions).

I wonder if someone with access to a copy of Shipway could look up Bob Triples (and caters and cinques) to see which way round he used - I know the compositions appearing, but only second hand, so no telling which was original! Unfortunately the CC's History books uses the Ropesight layout, without indicating original format.

Graham John

Shipway (1816) can be found at https://www.whitingsociety.org.uk/old-ringing-books/shipway-universal-instructor.html . It uses WMH.

David Struckett

Thank you Graham, I thought so. Useful to know about the Whiting Society too - how useful! I hope future CC publications keep to the original example set by Shipway.
David.

John Harrison

As late as the 1980s the Diary was using the convention for W & M that didn't fit the coursing order convention. I discovered that while rehearsing in my head a quarter that I was going to call, on my way to the church. At the end I hadn't got to 53246. I assumed I had made a slip and went through it all again but got the same result. When I got to the tower I wrote it out on paper to check. Fortunately something (can't remember what) gave me the idea of swapping over W & M and then the composition worked.
If I hadn't rehearsed calling it I would only have found the problem when it failed to come round at the end, which would have been embarrassing!

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