The first on the Scene, literally, were Dickon Love and myself (Mikey), who took up residence in Birmingham on Thursday night, having met up for a "get ready to leave London beer" beforehand. Alban Forster met up with us at our hotel and the three of us drank and became merry until the small hours, well at least Dickon and I did, Alban had to get himself off on the last bus. After a quick drink in Missing we moved onto the less cramped and non-karaoked venue, Nightingale.

Friday morning arrived and breakfast slid past before any stirrings from the Wetherlodge on Bennetts Hill could be detected, though Dickon and myself did manage, after a pint of tea and a Starbucks pannini to walk around the centre of Birmingham, get our bearings, investigate the revamped canals around Broad Street, before purchasing headache tablets. The two of us met Peter Triplow for lunch before going for our lift with Richard Offen and Callum to Edgbaston. Edgbaston is the University Ringers’ (BUSCR) tower, a nice ten hundredweight Taylor 8. A peal attempt had been arranged by Dickon for the Friday afternoon and Bristol Surprise Major was duly scored. The peal was conducted by Richard Offen and wasn’t a bad peal by any means.

For all those who don’t look at Campanophile or the Ringing World or any of Dickon’s chat list missives here are the details.

Friends of Dorothy Society
Edgbaston, W Mids St Bartholomew
Friday, 18 October 2002 in 2h32 (10-0-14)
5184 Bristol Surprise Major
Composed by: R I Allton
1 Timothy M Bayton
2 Alban D Forster
3 Richard A Smith
4 Paul I Butler
5 Paul J Pascoe
6 Michael A Birkbeck
7 Dickon R Love
8 Richard C Offen (Cond)
On the Society Autumn Tour.

As you can tell, this is the part of the tour when more people arrived to join the weekend, all except that is, Paul Pascoe, who drove all the way up from Devon, rang the peal and then drove back again. Now there’s dedication for you.

Thankfully, like any good ASCY Master Elect, Dickon organised the peal for the afternoon so Hurst Street (the Compton St of the Midlands) was descended upon by the remains of the peal band for a post peal pint or two before going out for a proper drink in the evening. Admittedly it was only a brief visit back at the hotels before all meeting up again and getting back down to Nightingales which had been deemed as a suitable evening meeting forum.

This is the scene of one of the "oh my goodness did I really do that" events. Great idea, isn’t it, to have internet access points in a night club? The peal details were immediately entered onto Campanophile. After a while the upstairs lounge bar became available to punters so we found a nice little corner for the 6 of us. This happened to be right next to the piano. Normally reserved for the resident old timer who throws off his pants and dons his pearls and blue rinse every week to tinkle the ivories for the Gale customers. Customers are also allowed to play a little, as long as it’s not too LOUD!!! Alban entertained us with quite a festival of hymns and modern worship, before he was told to turn it down for the second time or he would be kicked out. Tim Bayton pointed out that we were, in fact, customers and had rights, this is a comment that quite often doesn’t wash, let alone with a rampaging queen. It didn’t! A close call but we didn’t get chucked out, this time…

Maybe this would be a good time to mention that Paul Butler was well into his umpteenth glass of the white wine by now, so the sudden urge to e-mail the FoDS list may well have been misguided. However the deed was done and as all subscribers to the Chat list know, this is Paul’s "Oh my God did I really do that?". He does claim not to have pressed the send button and puts all the blame squarely on Dickon’s shoulders. I have my doubts, but I’ll let you make up your own minds. I shall not however reproduce the e-mail here, so as to prevent further embarrassment for certain parties and indeed certain party’s certain parts!

Saturday morning arrived, thankfully for myself I did manage to get up for some breakfast, joining John Adams and Richard Smith at the table. Dickon did not make it and in fact was close to missing the train from New Street to Sutton Coldfield. Thankfully he made it, unlike the train which had sticky doors, or something equally as debilitating.

Most of the day, the trains where on the late side, but we did manage to get to all the towers roughly on time.

Sutton Coldfield, where Tim is convinced he sent me a for a peal once upon time but I insist that I don’t recognise in the least, has painted Palm trees and parrots on the ringing chamber walls. This of course being something one would remember (the bells not being quite so) had one been there before made me double check, and I have now underlined it in my book. Sorry Tim I hadn’t been there before.

The ringers in evidence from Friday had now been augmented by Robin and Mark, Andrew, Martin, Greg, and John. Another welcome ringer was Scotty, subscribing to the list just one week before waited for us outside Sutton and joined us for the rest of the day.

Erdington was the next stop, in fact the lunchtime pub provided coffee (or beer) for us before ringing at the Parish Church. Alban, ably assisted by Tim, took everyone’s food order so we could make the most of our short lunch break after ringing. The bells at Erdington Parish were quite a pleasant surprise, as indeed are many of the bells around Birmingham. Now joined by Nigel and Doug and Phil as well, we started on the harder methods, from this point on 8 Spliced was rung at each towers, as was Glasgow. Of course every level was catered for.

Lunch was good, the food arrived quickly and a couple of pints of "Leveller" kept me happy. This is where Paul Williams joined us. It was also about now that the glimmering thought of having a Bristol Max band for Aston in the afternoon became a glistening reality.

After lunch, Perry Bar was the next stop for ringing. I do have to admit to now throwing my dummy out of my pram at the length of walk, it did seem a mile away from the station, and my gratitude goes to whoever it was for entertaining my wails of consternation, mainly directed at Alban’s organisation skills. It did however seem much quicker on the way back, especially after ridding myself of some lunchtime beer. So my apologies to Alban for getting the wrath of my bladder.

Simon joined us on the Perry Bar platform for the journey to Aston and the subsequent ring. Richard and Callum rejoined us here. This clinched it, we had that Bristol Max band, with a couple even sitting out!!

The Fods picture gallery has some photos of us ringing here and includes a video clip too. Rounds and call changes where rung, Stedman Cinques, Cambridge Max and then some more calls. Unfortunately the Bristol Max turned from a glistening reality to a wanton memory when the stay on the fourth broke being set at handstroke. I would like to refrain from naming names here to save embarrassment but everyone knows about it anyway. So, yes, it was Paul Williams, past master of ASCY, ringing credentials as long as your arm and slightly forgetful when it comes to remembering not to set a bell at handstroke because the stay will break.

The last port of call (well planned Alban) was St Chad’s Cathedral, being just a reasonably short walk from the hotel made things nice and easy for getting back, not of course before a pint or two in the Joint Stock, just across from St Philip’s Cathedral. After ringing here Andrew, Mark, Robin, Scotty, John, Martin and Greg left to go their own ways leaving a hard core of 14 (I think)

Phil, Doug and Paul had decided to go for a meal, rather than join us younger (???) members who would be beering it up on Hurst Street again, however, the meal idea was deemed a good one and in the end 10 hungry ringers went in search of a restaurant near by. We ended up in a French restaurant, which had good wine, good service, excellent quaffing wine, and a Real French waiter for Tim to talk to in French. We where then joined by Simon, who had been waylaid at the Joint Stock with Dickon who fancied another pint and a rest before hitting the scene rather than a good hearty meal. John didn’t join us either, he had two more Wetherspoons to drink in the West Midlands, or something along those lines, so he squeezed all he could out of his Daytripper ticket and cruised the tramlines for the evening.

After all were fed and watered the more genteel party goers went back to their hotel and the remainder went hot-foot to Hurst Street yet again for a final showdown, of alcoholic stamina and sleep deprivation.

What a night this turned out to be, it was an excellent evening. The Village was the centre of our frolics this time. Alban, who had gone home to eat rather than have a meal, joined us here. Though not without a struggle getting past the bouncer. Whipping out his passport as proof of age, as if it’s become habit to do so, the bouncer failed to see any likeness between Alban and his photograph and refused to let him in. Dickon went to the rescue but only managed to make thing worse by looking at the photo and bursting out laughing with something along the lines of "that doesn’t look a thing like you". This failed to impress said bouncer even further. Now it was Tim’s turn to help, and again, as in the Gale the night previous nearly managed to get himself kicked out as well. Now it was Paul’s turn, who not like being ignored by a bouncer who whilst being low on the evolutionary ladder was just "doing his job" sought the attention of the manager. This was just the ticket. Alban was in and smiles all round, except the bouncer of course.

As the night pounded on and the rampage of drinks continued Richard found himself a snog. Dickon, needless to say continued to chat up the world, Paul (a.k.a. Mouse) reached wine saturation (again), Mikey found the attentions of a very fit young man who later turned out to be a dealer. Richard fell asleep. This last statement seemingly innocuous, which indeed it was for Richard, did have excellent ramifications. Whilst Dickon and myself did "Richard Sit" so that he wasn’t mistreated in anyway, we did allow a small amount of fun at his expense. The mutilation of a magazine ensued and the adorning of Richard began. A face on his stomach with glasses and a cigarette. Toilet tissue around the legs. A tissue turban on his head (of course) with a paper crown. The addition of a Zorro mask set him off wonderfully. This was quite a talking point by many on the pub and some photos were taken. However none have been e-mailed through yet. We can only hope that one day they arrive for you all to see, though I doubt Richard shares my views here.

Dickon and Mike took Richard back to his room and then went back down to Hurst Street and wandered up to Kudos. Which, for all those who don’t know but know of DrB from the chat list, Kudos in London is the home of DrB’s "Surgery". Here we entered the "Breakfast Club", Dickon got us in by naming names of people he’d met earlier and I met my friend again. By now it was late, or rather, early! So we went back to our hotel and got to bed about 6.00 am. This does of course mean that I don’t know much about ringing on Sunday morning. Though I do know that a group went to St Philip’s, St Martin’s and St Chad’s and then joined the local lunchtime pub session. This is where Dickon and I come back in.

It was a good lunch before hitting the trains home. It was around about now that Alban started talking about languages:- French, German, English, Spanish, Latin. This is always where I lost all credit for saying "So would you say you’re a Cunning Linguist then Alban" because only one person heard me and she got all the credit for being funny when she said it. I just want to put you straight on this matter, as it has been a subject of many lost hours sleep lately..

The lunchtime gone, trains were sought and the last five standing went to New Street to get home. Dickon and I faced with a four hour journey due to engineering works were more than chuffed to find that ours was the first straight through train that day. We did manage three quarters of a bottle of wine each though. Getting into London we went into The Stag at Victoria and watched a drag act cabaret and drank more drink, we then went our separate ways and yours truly went back to Maidstone and ended up with a few more drinks in the Queen Anne.

I was late in to work on Monday.

This was another excellent FoDS outing, all those of you who wonder about coming along, please do if you can. They are great fun and the company is excellent. My personal thanks go to Alban for arranging the towers and lunchtime pub. Thanks to John for keeping everyone in the loop and knowing what trains to get. Thanks to Dickon for the peal arrangements and his company. In fact thanks to everyone for coming along and joining in.

The next trip is in February around Southampton. This should be another good trip so watch out for the date and pop it in your diaries.