(stats. from Bellboard at 6pm on 31^st December)

I’ve just had a look back at what I said in my quarter peal report for 2023 and the two key points were that Alistair (Donaldson), as the leading quarter peal ringing from Leicestershire in 2022 and 2023 (and probably many years before, but I’ve not looked at that), needed to watch out as others were catching him up, and that we needed as a Guild to work harder, as we didn’t really pull our weight compared with other Guilds, only ringing 1% of the total number of quarter peals in 2023.

So what’s the news?

Firstly a ‘thank you’ – John Cook got in touch in response to my appeal to help a year ago and has provided me with a very clever little program which interrogates Bellboard for me, providing the following stats. (and quite a lot of others) in no time at all.

And good news – more quarter peals were rung in Leicestershire in 2024 rather than 2023 (sorry I’m having to give stats for Leicestershire rather than the Guild – submitters of quarter peals often forget to link them to a Guild): 294 rather than 196 – that’s a good increase!  This increase is only partly a result of additional handbell quarter peals at the ‘most quartered location in Leicestershire’ (56 v 34 in 2023 at 80 Leconfield Road, Loughborough) – there has also been a big increase at Packington (43 v 12, the second most quartered location in the county) and at the Loughborough Bell Foundry (25 v 8).

80 Leconfield Road was the second most ‘handbell quartered’ location in the world this year and Packington came a very creditably 26^th in the list of leading towers for quarters.

Was Alistair the leading quarter peal ringer in 2024?  No, he wasn’t (at least not when handbell quarters are added to tower bell quarters!).  Leicestershire ringers with the most quarter peals in 2024 were:

Robert Watson: 146
Alistair Donaldson: 131
Judith Godfrey: 114
Alison Godfrey: 105
Brenda Parr: 67
Nicholas Parr: 67
Steve Millington: 55.

‘Outsiders’ (Derbyshire) worthy of a mention are John Hawes (111, who conducted 20 at Packington in 2024) and Tim Peverett (104, who conducted most of the handbell quarters at 80 Leconfield Road).

What might the statistics look like for 2025?  Well my New Year’s Resolution is to ring less quarters, so Alistair can look forward to regaining first place… beyond that who knows?!

Robert Watson

p.s. despite best endeavours, there may well be errors in these statistics!  Please let me know if you think I’ve got any of this seriously wrong!