East Meets West Pealbook
Long-term subscribers to The Ringing World, and particularly those who have an interest in peal ringing, may have noticed that a cluster of peals appear annually under the heading of East meets West. The name refers to a long-established peal band that has toured every year since 1969, apart from 1975 (due to family commitments) and 2020 (Covid).
The tour was established by Howard Egglestone, along with John Hunt, Jim Towler and Cyril Wratten, a quartet who shared similar values and aspirations when it came to peal ringing. Howard, in particular, was much inspired by the accounts of Bill Pye’s legendary peal tours that ran intermittently from 1901 to 1934. Bill simply surrounded himself with talented ringing friends, took on the vagaries of early twentieth century transport, and rang peals in classic methods on the finest bells in different parts of the country. His band often rang two peals every day for a week and whilst they evidently enjoyed some strong companionship they were principally gathered for high-class ringing.
Adopting Bill’s approach, Howard and John raised a combined band, half from East Anglia where Howard lived, and half from the West Country, which was John’s patch. Based in the Bristol area, they dubbed themselves East meets West and thus laid the foundations for one of the most successful and enduring touring peal bands.
The tours were initially arranged during the summer months but following a series of very hot weeks they shifted to springtime or autumn. These days our preference is for a tour based on a long weekend and rather fewer peals. The only other touring bands that share our longevity are the original Tom Lock Peal Tour that started in 1948 and the Around Tour that began in 1963. Both these bands, like our own, have flourished under various leaders and organisers over the years and continue to this day.
From the outset East meets West has always strived to maintain the highest of standards, combining a careful selection of classic methods on eight, ten and twelve bells with the best of compositions. That Bristol and London on all numbers dominate our repertoire should be no great surprise, whilst compositions by Albert Pitman and Chris Kippin are firm favourites in the Spliced lexicon. Each tour also features two or three rather more obscure or new methods to lend variety.
Another feature of the tour is that it has always comprised a relatively small number of ringers, all of whom get on well together and share a strong commitment and loyalty to the enterprise. The four founder members toured regularly for more than 35 years before they were no longer able to do so, whilst the rest of us have typically notched up a similar number of appearances. Remarkably, eight members of the band have each rung well over 200 peals on tour.
With the passage of time it became clear that it would be an interesting and useful exercise to gather together all our peal records and make them widely available. So, with help from several people over many months, the peal reports have all been placed on BellBoard and a digital East meets West peal book has been created. The book is there primarily for posterity and it will be updated regularly.
Martin Whiteley
