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QPs are much closer to the pre-COVID numbers. Perhaps 3+ hour stints of ringing have just gone out of fashion?

QPs are much closer to the pre-COVID numbers. Perhaps 3+ hour stints of ringing have just gone out of fashion? — John de Overa

People aren't 'peal fit' any more. Peals require physical and mental fitness. I think its also a generational thing. I stopped ringing peals after covid - I lost interest. Although in my 70s I hope I'm still peal fit, but I just don't want to invest the time any more. If I am typical, a lot of peal ringers will have dropped out of the system for the same/similar reasons, thereby contributing to reducing opportunities for younger ringers. This is the whole thing about Ringing 2030 - thousands of us are going to permanently drop out of ringing, let alone peals within a few years! This is really frightening.

In defence of peal ringing
A few observations myself:
Peal ringing has, and always will be the only time where good ringing is achieved with a non-12-bell standard band, barring some well-run local band practices and some practices in urban centres which attract commuters, many of these places being inaccessible to younger ringers. Peal ringing for may ‘learners’, if they are lucky, provides them with three hours of ringing with people who are better than them. Uninterrupted
Anecdotal pub conversations with ringers of my own generation regularly include phrases such as ‘it takes me an hour to properly work out what I need to do to my bell’. ‘Properly’ in this context meaning more than just whether one’s bell is oddstruck; it means working out what pace the ringing is, what the tenor ringer is trying to achieve, what the middle and front bells are/are not doing to accommodate this, how the tower acoustics are affecting what I need to do to my own bell, who I am having particular problems with and whether or not that is a me problem or a them problem. Peal ringing is the only place that promotes this line of thought. So does the decline in peal ringing, or perhaps the reticence of some to push younger people into peal ringing, matter? Absolutely. How many ringers have won the 12-bell having rung fewer than 100 peals? If people stop providing proper opportunities to people through peal attempts, the decline in the quality of striking in the ringing community is inevitable.
I am travelling to Birmingham to ring in someone’s 22nd birthday peal on Saturday. The ringer in question has rung 344 peals to date. By that age, Alan Regin had rung 79 peals, Colin Turner had rung 21. My brother had rung 336 peals by the time he went to university, though he also comes from what is ostensibly a ringing family, though not to the same depth as Chris Kippin. People in Chris’ position certainly do exist.
Genuine question – how often has the number of people going to university with 100+ peals under their belt in a single year exceeded single figures? I suspect hardly ever as these people need to be in regular peal bands and these have not really existed (or existed to the extent that someone can ring 50+ peals a year) until the 1970s.
Perhaps the OP simply isn’t ringing with the younger generation of peal ringers any more. I can assure him younger peal ringers do exist. Many of them are taking it upon themselves to organise their own peal attempts and they are well-supported by those in the more experienced generation who want to see them progress in their striking abilities. High quality peals are still being rung by both those who have rung 5000+ and those who may get there one day. Maybe the OP can refer the concerned young ringer to the current prolific younger peal ringers if he is concerned that they are missing out on peal ringing opportunities.
What is the future of peal ringing? I suspect it is much like the rest of ringing – increasingly nucleated around clusters of ringers, instead of local bands bringing in a few peal ringers to get them through 42 extents of Grandsire Doubles. Whether this is something the ringing community needs to be worried about risks expanding the query beyond the parameters of the original question. However, I have every confidence that ringers will continue to do what they have always done and get new people involved at every opportunity. Peals are an essential part of that.

Perhaps the OP simply isn’t ringing with the younger generation of peal ringers any more. I can assure him younger peal ringers do exist. — Jack Page

My point really, or one of them, was that the majority of the established peals bands don't routinely give young ringers the opportunity to join them. It's understandable - asking young people takes effort, they might not be able to get there, etc. It's easier just for them to ask their usual mates, especially if they ring daytime peals as the fit retired community does.

I agree with Jack that peal ringing is really important but it requires special effort to provide the opportunities.

established peals bands don't routinely give young ringers the opportunity to join them. — Simon Linford

Many established peal bands are retired ringers ringing peals during school hours, which makes it hard to include youngsters except during holidays.

I little while ago I proposed 3000 as a target, which meets the point Jack makes about establishing quality ringing but would be more accessible, especially in the evenings. A bit like only playing 15 holes of golf. Don Morrison produced a load of compositions but it didn't catch on at all!

I suspect the problem with 3000s is that established ringers are happy ringing peals and still see it as the gold standard. If I've been ringing for 2 hours I may as well continue for a third hour, knowing that what I am doing is the same thing that the ringing legends of 50, 100 and 200 years ago were doing the same. 3000s don't have the same historic significance, though I do understand the advantages.

I think it depends on the peal bands. I was lucky to have been involved in a local 'pensioners' peal band who I was able to ring with when it was the school holidays. I was driven to and from peal attempts by one of the band who was willing to give me a lift. If peal bands don't do this then they're doomed to die, and that would be a real shame, for the reasons I outlined above.

What is the future of peal ringing? I suspect it is much like the rest of ringing – increasingly nucleated around clusters of ringers — Jack Page

I think you are right - I don't thing it is going to die out because there are still enough talented younger ringers like yourself to ensure it doesn't, but the volume of peals will likely fall. As to whether that's going to be a permanent situation, who knows? As I understand it ringing has had many troughs and peaks it's difficult to predict the future. Personally my biggest ringing regret is that I didn't find out and start when I was much younger, if I had there'd have been a chance I'd be at least a jobbing peal ringer ;-)

I little while ago I proposed 3000 as a target, which meets the point Jack makes about establishing quality ringing but would be more accessible — Simon Linford

I think @Phillip George may have given the reason why it didn't take off. To ring even 3000 you need to be "peal fit", and that's probably best done by ringing frequent QPs first. I know QP numbers have rebounded reasonably well since COVID but I wonder what proportion of those were in preparation for longer lengths rather than being a goal on their own?

established peals bands don't routinely give young ringers the opportunity to join them — Simon Linford

Does age really have anything to do with that?

I little while ago I proposed 3000 as a target, — Simon Linford

3000 is a lot of peals!

Does age really have anything to do with that? — John de Overa

No you're right - it is not the age per se but established peal ringers, organisers and bands tend to ask their own, the people they know because they see them or know them to be reliable, or they organise the band for the next peal in the pub after the last one. In order to ask the up and coming youngster, or indeed the keen older ringer who would like to be peal ringing but does not get the opportunity, needs thinking outside the box. Young ringers have the additional complication of travel, especially if they have non-ringing parents. Plus of course for many bands ringing peals is a social thing, and you can't really criticise anyone for wanting to do something with their group of friends.

I can't see that I'll ever ring a peal but from observation of people who do, it does seem like it's a bit of a closed shop - "X's peal band" and so on. If you are going to invest the time in a peal the reasons you give for selecting people are understandable, but on the other hand it can make it hard for people to "break in". I'm not sure what the solution is, "peal clubs" perhaps, with a larger pool of ringers to draw on? Dunno.

we have a keen youngster whose solution is to organise peals and ask experienced ringers to ting in them.

well done him, but not all young ringers are going to have the confidence to do that. From the discussion so far, there are enough barriers as it is.

I am not a peal ringer so am probably not well placed to comment, but an 'external' perspective may assist.

Is this another reflection of what is discussed more generally about ringing and ringers ... the numbers, the commitment. the expectations? There are a few specific points spring to my mind -

- Safeguarding - This is an additional factor that complicates any activity involving under 18s that did not arise a few years ago.

- Transport - The opportunities for a few people including under 18s, to go on public transport or by bike to a tower for a peal are far more limited now. Cars and drivers are almost essential. Having said that, more young people seem to own a car now, even when at college / university or soon after.

- Time - 3 hours plus travel is a lot of time when people have many other interests and commitments. But working hours used to be much, much longer and many manual occupations were physically exhausting.

- Noise - are there more concerns about disturbing a neighbourhood and is there less acceptance of 3hours of ringing?

- .... but aren't they easier to arrange now by emails, rather than letters by post?

Noise - are there more concerns about disturbing a neighbourhood and is there less acceptance of 3hours of ringing? — Alison Hodge

I doubt that's a factor. Peals only account for a few percent of the hours of ringing each year, and although they are longer stretches they are generally better ringing than a lot of practices and service ringing.

We have a keen experienced conductor who likes to get people through their first peal! But I appreciate this is different to the regular peal band opportunities.
A few years ago the Central Council made a push for getting 300 (?) new people to ring a peal in a year. He got 8 people to ring their first peal that year.
On the other hand one of the most prolific peal ringers local to us rang many more peals that year but none with someone for whom it was a first peal. So perhaps you need that first opportunity with someone who’s target is to support ringers development and that helps you prove readiness to join some of the experienced peal ringing bands for a peal or two.

peal ringing is only of academic interest to me (my last QP inside was PB6 2+ years ago) but I think peal ringing is important and needs supporting. My QPs were prefaced by lots of longer touches at practices, I assume QPs serve the same sort of purpose for peals? It might be possible to mine BellBoard to find the average ringing history of first time pealers, e.g. how many QPs had they rung in the year before their first peal. You might then be able to use that to identify potential first-time pealers.

It might be possible to mine BellBoard to find the average ringing history of first time pealers, e.g. how many QPs had they rung in the year before their first peal. You might then be able to use that to identify potential first-time pealers. — John de Overa

Mining BellBoard is a useful way to gather information about overall patterns (but I think it wouldbe quite hard to find out how many quarters first pealers had rung). You could do it for an individual but the best way to identify individuals who could benefit from the opportunity to ring a peal is by personal contact. A district ringing master should be aware of people who could be encouraged to ring peals, especially those from towers where the local, band doesn't ring peals.

I think it would be quite hard to find out how many quarters first pealers had rung

AFAIK BellBoard data is in a MySQL database so it would be trivial.

A district ringing master should be aware of people who could be encouraged to ring peals

That's a misassumption. And in any case, there have only been 15 peals registered in my association + county this year, all in the same small area and all 1+ hour away. So peal ringing in my association is already dead.

That illustrates my concerns about many of the conversations in this forum and the direction the CC takes in general. They are driven by people who are generally in areas where ringing is still in reasonable health, even if not exactly thriving. They struggle to square their personal experience with the situation in other areas - "It can't really be that bad". Well, I'm afraid, yes, it is.

I didn't make an assumption, I made an assertion about what a branch ringing master 'should' be able to do, because he/she would know the capability of someone, and also of local opportunities.
If ringing in an area is in such poor health that the district RM could not play such a role then it seems unlikely that anyone would have advanced to the point of being ready for a peal.

↪John de Overa
I didn't make an assumption, I made an assertion about what a branch ringing master 'should' be able to do, because he/she would know the capability of someone, and also of local opportunities.
If ringing in an area is in such poor health that the district RM could not play such a role then it seems unlikely that anyone would have advanced to the point of being ready for a peal. — John Harrison

In the main, district RMs don't take on that role. When I was taught my teacher was my mentor and arranged my first QPs and peals. He also guided me in what I should learn to build my skills in a logical way. As my mentor he also introduced me to some of the best ringers. I strongly believe that each learner should have a mentor to give structured guidance. This should not restrict a ringer from making their own decisions and I encourage mine to ring wherever they can, as well as being loyal to their own tower. Sadly, once a learner can ring CCs or PB they are often (but not always) abandoned and it's assumed that they know more than they do, and this can hinder their progress. New ringers know nothing - they need to be looked after!

In the main, district RMs don't take on that role. — Phillip George

That might be true, but I didn't claim they all do, I said it was somethimng they ought to be in a position to do. While the 'doing' part of an RM's job might be running the ringing at district events, doing that effectivley entails understanding the needs and capabilities of the participants.

When I was taught my teacher was my mentor and arranged my first QPs and peals — Phillip George

Yes, that's the ideal, and the way we do it. But anyone with such a mentor wouldn't be in the situation being discussed in this thread.

This should not restrict a ringer from making their own decisions — Phillip George

Agreed. That's what we did, with the band almost all firsts in both cases, but such self starters aren't in the position being discussed either.

I've been more or less out of ringing for several years now - largely because moving to vairous relatively sparsely populated areas around the country produced only intermittent ringing, on small numbers of bells, and often, dare I say this, with bands not wishing to progress their abilities.

Now, I regret to say, though I am fairly keen to find some decent ringing, but not on small rings, and, generally, I favour peals - but not non-progressing practices ad nauseam. The idea produced is that ringing prowess is in such short supply that it is only in major locations that (a) advanced ringing can be contemplated, and (b) the product of advanced ringing can be relied upon to attract and 'raise' new people to put in the required effort. Too often, in local towers encountered in the past ~10 years, one has seen a status quo where an aspirant(!), even after a great deal of 1:1 teaching, can neither reliably know where their bell is in rounds, nor sustain its place in the sequence.

Many, of course, put in a great deal of time and effort trying to recruit new persons to ringing. This is nothing but laudable. Yet, the failure rate at most levels (in retention, as well as a reasonably useful upward sense of prowess) is high. Without stimulus from the existing band, there is little forward push for a new ringer to hone and advance their abilities.

I know this is 'doom and gloom', but I cannot see where, in the sort of locations I have mentioned, any progress can be made.

It might also be a culture change as modern society seems to pursue activities that require ever decreasing attention spams. Is this why there now seem to be more mistakes in peals than there should be / used to be? Has anyone else found this? Did people used to ring better when better concentration and a slower life pace prevailed? It's depressing that peal ringing is one of the only activities of long duration I can easily think of where the other people are continually away from their smartphones or the internet

Is this why there now seem to be more mistakes in peals than there should be / used to be? — Richard Pullin

When I was peal ringing I set myself a max number of trips to 5 per peal and was disappointed to get any, especially early on in a peal. This gave me self determination to maintain a high standard and not let other ringers down.

Dear All,
Several people have said that peal ringing is the best, or even the only, way to achieve a high standard of ringing. That is why they are concerned that peal ringing has become less popular.
My opinion, however, is that it is much more important to work on getting a good standard of ringing at more basic levels.
So, no, I don't think it matters that fewer people are ringing peals. I think that what matters is to get ringers at a basic level able to understand how to ring plain hunt doubles that flows nicely
There are several reasons I think plain hunt doubles is more important than peals - the main one is that there is a lot more of it!
Regards, Barbara

the failure rate at most levels (in retention, as well as a reasonably useful upward sense of prowess) is high. Without stimulus from the existing band, there is little forward push for a new ringer to hone and advance their abilities. — DRD-mus

Although this discussion is about peal ringing, the "elite" level is dependent on having a healthy pyramid below it to draw from. I've seen all the issues you describe and while it's difficult to jumpstart a stuck band, it is possible, although it's a multi-year project. We are doing it by setting expectations for new ringers from the start that method ringing is the goal, and CCs / PH are just stepping stones. There are 3 of us who can ring methods and we are collaborating to support the other ringers. It's not always easy but there's great satisfaction in seeing people enthused and making real progress week-on-week - we are at the stage where the more recent starters are overtaking those who've been ringing for decades and are stuck at the same level. If existing ringers want to step up to the mark, great, but we aren't going to stop moving forwards.

I think the biggest challenge is to create the right culture, where continued progression is the norm. If people allowed to "top out" at CCs or PH-by-the-numbers it's difficult to rekindle the enthusiasm that made them take up ringing in the first place.

Have we compared what is published in The Ringing World with what is published for a similar time period on BellBoard? It might be worth knowing if a lot of peal bands simply choose not to have their performances in the printed version. I know a few people who think that it is unnecessary for peals to take up valuable print space.

If we follow the evidence though, I think there is plenty that has come out of Andrew Craddock's peals analyses over the years, which has shown a long term trend for fewer and fewer people ringing in more and more peals. The evidence says it is a bit of a closed shop, with some healthy exceptions (as Jack has pointed out) Hence the push in 2015 to for people to ring their first peal.

As someone who identifies as a peal ringer, but doesn't ring all that many these days, having a few peal attempts under your belt does build the right stamina and confidence, and is that opportunity to learn rhythm and striking, and more importantly, the consistency of keeping that rhythm and striking throughout.

I'll be a bit controversial though and posit that some peals bands can be a bit lazy on that front. I've been in a few attempts where there was about an hour of really decent ringing, due to time spent getting settled into the rhythm, dealing the odd-struckness of other bells and ringers, that 'tired' period just after halfway and so on. Because there is time to deal with all of that.

On the other hand, I have experience of dedicated quarter peal ringers who can go straight to excellent within a few changes and keep that going for the length of the quarter peal, because that is all the time there is. So the question is, do we need to spend 3 hours to get an hour of decent ringing, or can we focus on the one hour all at once. Which is better? Or is that the wrong question?

Dear All,
Several people have said that peal ringing is the best, or even the only, way to achieve a high standard of ringing. That is why they are concerned that peal ringing has become less popular.
My opinion, however, is that it is much more important to work on getting a good standard of ringing at more basic levels.
So, no, I don't think it matters that fewer people are ringing peals. I think that what matters is to get ringers at a basic level able to understand how to ring plain hunt doubles that flows nicely
There are several reasons I think plain hunt doubles is more important than peals - the main one is that there is a lot more of it!
Regards, Barbara — Barbara Le Gallez

Yes, there is value in lower levels of ringing and plain hunt is worth getting right before proceeding further. However, just aiming for plain hunt doesn't really dig into the art of ringing (in my view).

I think we need to ask just what is our core aim as an exercise? Our ideal standard that we want most new ringers to reach over time?

For me, it is:

• ringing that is a suitable length to be a performance,
• in a variety of methods up to the median of difficulty of all methods rung at the moment,
• in a way that utilises the full ring*,
• and with good striking at all towers which are in a fair condition.

QPs in a variety of methods satisfy these criteria, and might not require so many resources to achieve.

If we only aim for plain hunt, that's all we'll be left with in fifty years' time. It may be good quality plain hunt, but it won't be the change ringing we know today.

*(i.e., a mix of 5,6,8,10 and 12-bell ringers relative to the number of towers with each number of bells)

I think we need to ask just what is our core aim as an exercise? Our ideal standard that we want most new ringers to reach over time?

For me, it is:

ringing that is a suitable length to be a performance,
in a variety of methods up to the median of difficulty of all methods rung at the moment,
in a way that utilises the full ring*,
and with good striking at all towers which are in a fair condition. — Tristan Lockheart

There seems to be a danger in this approach that the majority of ringers for the majority of their ringing career would be assessed as being sub par. Not that inspiring or that enjoyable in what, after all, is an entirely voluntary pastime.