Shropshire Association of Church Bellringers

Today we start our virtual treasure hunt through the world of bellringing. Only by solving each clue in turn can you progress through the quiz.

As you go you will have to collect “key items” that will help you to complete answers you have yet to see, or imagine. You will not know whether you have collected the right material until you are called upon to use it.

So best of luck bellringing travellers. Bon Voyage.

I will post three new questions (plus one FEQ) every week and give the answer to the previous week’s questions.

Websites will be our main source of information so let’s start with SACBR.

1. If the librarian were a liquid measure how many would you get to the pint?

2. This question is appealing. If you were successful with Question 1 you will be able to name the tower where that numbered Association peal was rung. You will also be able to name a ringer. How many peals did he ring for the Association?

FIENDISH EXTRA QUESTION (FEQ1) Here is a chance to cash in your first key item.
If you add the number of bells in the tower in Question 2 to the number of Association peals rung by the ringer, you will get a number. Use that number in a weighty way to find a bell that no longer exists, but whose name might remind you of bellringing that doesn’t exist, or at least isn’t real.
You might then go to a website managed by Interactive Advertising. If you are in the right web site you might be able to tell me the possible name of Cain’s sister.
This is turn might remind you of a table and a famous radio show host whose surname is the same as the name of the dog who found Jules Rimet in 1966. What, in the context of this question is so interesting about the designer of the Jules Rimet.

3. If the team who had won the Jules Rimet most often, were a Surprise method with a military rank, what would be the place bell order?
Using Virtual Methods Archive or similar web site can you find a bell ringing This link might be helpful: www.vismeth.co.uk/main.htm.
If you started with the smallest, then added the first to the second bell in that order and then subtracted the next, added the next, etc what number would you end up with.

The answers to the Week 1 quiz can be found here

4. We started with 4 and now we have 3. So if 3 is ones, 4 is about as small as it gets, and a company commander is one less than 8, why is the plural of five 11?

5. 11 is a great number. For one thing it’s a prime number. What is the sum of all the prime numbers smaller than 11?

FIENDISH EXTRA QUESTION (FEQ2): We are sticking with 11, at least to start with. Who wrote 11 symphonies the last of which was unfinished and written in 1876?
If you take the surname of the composer and add it to the first name of the designer of the Jules Rimet Trophy, then remove a type of story by Aesop, whatever you have left is an audible clue to a song from a famous musical. Which?
There was another song in the same musical which mentioned two different types of bells. What were they?

6. Back with our prime numbers. In 5 you calculated the sum of the prime numbers smaller than 11. There is a marvellously named village in Essex called Fobbing. Using the sum of the prime numbers less than 11 as a clue, and rung in the year after the 1000th peal rung for the Shropshire Association you will find a QP with a link to SACBR. What is it? (Clue – Use Bellboard)

The answers to the Week 2 quiz can be found here

7. If Shropshire and Scotland have 0 or 1 depending on how you look at it, Oxford has 15, Chester has 5, and Leicester has 6, how many has North Wales? Please remember this is a bell ringer’s quiz

8. If you got the last question correct you will have used an 8 letter plural. It reminded me of an anagram of my favourite aunt and her husband’s shortened first names. What are their most likely full first names?

FIENDISH EXTRA QUESTION (FEQ3): This isn’t really bellringy but is based on the current lockdown. Guess the original title of a book, film or play from the Covid situation remake:

1. I coughed over the bird house
2. The SARS of Boris Johnson
3. 2020
4. Ruler of the virus
5. The nurse who came home from the pandemic
6. 2020: an odd spaciality
7. Coughing in the train
8. The importance of being distanced
9. Who’s afraid of Covid-19
10. The line controller

9. Were back with bellringing again. This is both simple and difficult. As we saw in 7, Shropshire and Scotland are similar, but one letter separates them, what letter is it?

The answers to the Week 3 quiz can be found here

1. Old Imperial system of volume measurement that sounds like a girl’s shortened name. How many were there to the pint.

2. If you got the correct answer to 1 (above) and you have access to the SACBR website you will find this straightforward.
Can you name the tower where the peal with the same number was rung?
Using the same number you should be able to identify a ringer in that peal.
Still navigating the SACBR web site you should be able to find out how many peals he rang for the Association.

SHAGGY DOG QUESTION (SDQ1) Here is a chance to cash in your first key item.
If you add the number of bells in the tower in Question 2 to the number of Association peals rung by the ringer, you will get a number.
Use that number to identify, from a list of the heaviest bells in the UK, a bell that was replaced in Manchester Town Hall after just 6 years by a heavier bell. What was the name of that bell (in fact both bells)?
Does the name of the first simulator remind you of a male biblical character. If so, who was his brother?
Now go back to the simulator programmes. Does one have a name that rhymes with a piece of furniture?
If you put the name of this simulator programme and the piece of furniture into the search engine Google together with the words radio show you will be led to a BBC radio show that ran from 1946 to 1967. What are the names of the show and the host?
Here is an interesting if tortuous link:
There was a dog that found something very valuable in 1966. The host of the radio show might remind you of the dog’s name. What was it and what did he discover?
Back to Google. The thing he found had a designer. What was his first name?
Spooky or what?!!?

3. If you discovered what the dog found, you will be able to name the nationality of the team that has won it most times.
Using Virtual Methods Archive or similar web site can you find a bell ringing method on 8 bells with the same name? What is it? (This link might be helpful: http://www.vismeth.co.uk/main.htm)
If you look at the order of the bells write them down starting with the 2. Now some maths! Add the second number to the first. Then subtract from the sum the third number and go on in this way adding and subtracting alternate numbers. What number to you get left with?

The answers to the Week 1 quiz can be found here

4. By now you will know that the first answer to Q1 was 4 and that the last answer to Q3 was 3. So we are going to start this week with 3.
To get the next answer you will need to know some rudimentary stuff about naming of methods on different numbers of bells.
So: what is the name given to a method rung on 3 bells? And on 4?
Now a bit trickier: What is the rank of soldier in the British Army who leads a Company of soldiers? How does that relate to the name of methods rung on 8 bells?
Now very tricky.
There are two calls used to conduct extended lengths of bell ringing. One is “bob” and the other is …………….
How does that name differ from the name of a method rung on 3 bells?
OK, hold that idea. So there is the same difference between five in a foreign language and the name of methods rung on 11 bells. What is the foreign word?

5. I like the number 11 because of its qualities. One thing about it is that it is a prime number. But there are smaller prime numbers. So if you took all the prime numbers between 0 and 10 and added them together what number might you get?
Big clue: be very careful, a number you think might be prime, might not be.

SHAGGY DOG QUESTION (SDQ2) We are sticking with 11, at least to start with.
Using Google (or other search engine) find the name of a Swiss born German composer who wrote 11 symphonies. The 11th, which he wrote in 1876, was unfinished. Who is he?
Take his surname and add to it the first name of the designer of the Jules Rimet trophy (you found that last week). What letters do you get (there should be 8!).
Aesop was a famous Greek author born in 620 BC (now called BCE) He was a storyteller and wrote a particular type of story. What was it? (Clue: it is 5 letters long).
If you subtract those 5 letters from the 8 you already have, you end up with 3. Written one way they are the initials of a famous air force, but written in another order, they spell a proper word. What is that word?
Say it out loud, in fact sing it. Does it remind you of a famous song sung by a woman who appeared as Mary Poppins in another film? It should.
What was the name of the song, the actress/singer and the film?
Now in that same film there was another song in which two different types of bells are mentioned. What are the two bell types?

6. Back with our prime numbers.
For this question you will need two bellringing web sites, Bellboard and SACBR.
The number you got by adding together the real prime numbers from 0 to 10 is a clue.
I want you to find a ringing performance. It was rung in a village called Fobbing in Essex. It was rung the year after the 1000th peal was rung for our Association (Clue: this was at St Chad’s). Knowing the year and the sum of the prime numbers, using Bellboard, find that performance. If you open up the performance it gives you lots of information about what was rung. Can you spot a link to our Association?

The answers to the Week 2 quiz can be found here

7. This question is about the way that Bell Ringing Guilds and Associations are structured. If Shropshire and Scotland have 0 or 1 depending on how you look at it, Oxford has 15, Chester has 5, and Leicester has 6, how many has North Wales? Please remember this is a bell ringer’s quiz!

8. If you got the last question correct you will have found that the numbers referred to the way that large Guilds and Associations are divided up geographically.

Those units form an 8 letter word.

It reminded me of an anagram of my favourite aunt and uncle’s shortened first names.
They are …. & …. (The number of dots is important.) What are their most likely full first names?

SHAGGY DOG QUESTION (SDQ3) ): This isn’t really bellringy but is based on the current lockdown. Guess the original title of a book, film or play from the Covid situation remake.
These three websites might help:
www.goodreads.com/list/show/13581.Goodreads_Top_100_Stage_Plays_of_All_Time
www.bfi.org.uk/greatest-films-all-time
www.goodreads.com/list/show/2681.Time_Magazine_s_All_Time_100_Novels

1. I coughed over the bird house
2. The SARS of Boris Johnson
3. 2020
4. Ruler of the virus
5. The nurse who came home from the pandemic
6. 2020: an odd spaciality
7. Coughing in the train
8. The importance of being distanced
9. Who’s afraid of Covid-19
10. The line controller

9. We're back with bellringing again. This is both simple and difficult. As we saw in 7, Shropshire and Scotland are similar, but one letter separates them, what letter is it (think of Acronyms)?

The answers to the Week 3 quiz can be found here