Balls and Bells

I greatly admire the skill of the people who write apps for computers.  The snooker app I have on my tablet is so lifelike because it's fallible.  I mean, there are times when my opponent tries a very fine cut ... and misses completely!  This is my aid to relaxation most evenings.

I've been thinking this week of my teenage years when, with two or three friends, I would venture twice a week to the old schoolroom behind the air-raid shelter at the corner of the churchyard and play snooker on a real table.  One evening, I was alone; the older men greeted me, "Your friends not come tonight? You better come and play with us, then."  So I was made welcome at their table.  The speed of their game was noticeably slower and more thoughtful than the 'hit-and-hope' style I was used to.  As a result, I learned such a lot playing with them.

Sometimes it was at my own expense.  "Just a little top spin on that shot ..."  and, of course, my cue ball followed the red into the pocket, "4 away!" and laughter followed.  There was good advice, too, though; often it came through listening to the comments of one man to another.  The man who encouraged me most, Eric, was probably the oldest there, already in his seventies, I'd guess.  I remember his comment when an opponent had tried a particularly difficult manoeuvre.  "Well done, Jack.  You've got perfect position on the black there ... pity you didn't pot the red, though!"  The red was left in the jaws of the pocket, and Eric clipped it in effortlessly while still laughing.

So much of that game is mathematical, both in the geometry of the angles and in the degree to which energy is absorbed by the cushion, thus changing the direction in which the ball will leave after bouncing off.  The speed of a stroke is also critical: too soft, and it won't reach its destination, but too hard and the ball will bounce out of the pocket again instead of sinking and allowing you another shot.

My other teenage interest - unlike snooker, one that I've carried down to the present day - was bell-ringing.  It's another hobby in which precision is important, in this case precision of timing, which depends on being familiar with a bell and its peculiarities.  With experience, a ringer can quickly become aware of how to control a bell, in a similar way to driving a strange car.

Of course it's very much a team effort ... indeed, it's not something that can be done alone, since each bell requires a ringer!  No one person can make success of a piece of ringing, although one bad ringer in a team can make success difficult to achieve.  Since no one is perfect, most ringing consists of allowing for the slight variations of each other ringer in the team from one stroke to the next, perhaps in pulling a little too heavily or lightly, perhaps in mis-remembering the method.

Ringing, like snooker, was something I learned from people who'd had many years' experience: the man who taught me to handle a bell rang his first peal in 1923.  Many others in that band were of about the same age.  For a fair-sized market town, we had few native ringers, but the bells were good, had an excellent tone and were a joy to ring so, although we could only muster five or six on a Sunday, practice nights regularly attracted well over a dozen, to ring the eight bells.  For weddings or other special occasions, we would draw in help from the nearby villages.

One who came regularly from about six miles away was Albert.  He had an interesting technique, which I find I have adopted, although not consciously copying him.  If he found he was about to pull too quickly after the bell before him, his hands would vibrate forward and back, but at that same level, not making the downward movement until just that second or so later, so as to be in time with the rest.  I don't pretend to understand the science of that, and I don't suppose Albert did either.  Surely such a movement won't slow the bell down; it certainly doesn't change its direction.  My guess is that it simply gives the hands something to do until the right moment to make the downward pull.

Two old men, both long gone now but not forgotten, who played a part in shaping my leisure.