A Successful Weekend in Toronto

For some time, David Hawkins has been keen to make a peal attempt at St James Cathedral to celebrate his 50 years of marriage to Ann and as a slightly belated celebration of Robin and Nicki Clarke’s Golden Wedding too. He had originally suggested “Union Triples” as being appropriate, which we duly learned, but settled for Grandsire Triples on the day. Don Morrison and Ross Finbow braved the potentially stormy weather of the 22-24 November weekend, drove up from Pittsburgh and on Saturday morning, we rang a 2 hour 52 minute peal (very quick for us) on a middle eight. Olivia Gamache rang the second for her first peal.

We had a practice on the previous evening, when some of our learners and non-peal ringing band members had enjoyed a very good exercise on the twelve. This continued on Saturday afternoon before adjourning to David and Ann’s home for a great party and the inauguration of Mike Hinton’s mini-ring, set up in David’s very cold garage. We broke up quite early, as an early winter snow storm made the drive home a hazardous exercise. Service ringing on Sunday morning was followed after the service by a quarter of Cambridge Surprise Major on the front eight, in memory of Edward Martin. This was notable too, as a first quarter in a surprise method for both Olivia and Eric Wolever, who has only been ringing for 13 months.

Thanks go to all who made the weekend a success, especially David Wilcox’ organizational and construction skills and David and Ann’s hosting skills.