[r-t] Dixons Variation

[John David]

Dixons Variation

I have looked at http://ringing.8bit.co.uk/article.html.

Church Bells 31/1/1880. Daresbury band rang on 27/2 720 Bob Minor (Dixon’s 
Variation) 138 bobs, 6 singles, 6 extremes.

CB 6/3/1880. Letter from R Mackman. (He was from Spalding, not that far from 
Maxey)

“If rung with six extremes, I beg to say is not Dixon’s variation. The 
calling is as follows: - When the 2nd and 4th lead is a bob;[and] when the 
treble leads and the tenor dodges behind with the 5th; the singles are when 
the tenor dodges behind with the 5th; the extremes, when the treble leads 
and the tenor dodges in the middle, with the 3rd in the first half, in the 
last half; in the last half when the tenor dodges in the middle with the 
5th.

Spalding had rung Dixons in 1877 (CB27/3/1880) and the Daresbury band had 
got their figures from them. “The extremes occur when the 2 is making 
seconds, and tenor is in the middle” .

Either composition has extremes (presumably 1256), so I beg (to use Mr 
Mackman’s phrase) to suggest that the Maxey peal was not Dixon’s variation 
either!

I would also suggest that the original Maxey “peal” was an extent – I think, 
from reading CB that this was what a peal of minor would have implied at 
that date and in that area. The peal board, as I remember it from some 
thirty years ago, records mainly a long length rung at the nearby village of 
Glinton.

Does the nomenclature as a “variation” exclude it from the normal rules of 
method construction?

John David

(Quotations from J R Jerram's cutting book of CB)