THERE'S NO ROOM FOR "PROS." OR SNOBS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 84, 31 January 1941, Page 10

THERE'S NO ROOM FOR "PROS." OR SNOBS

An Ancient Player Discourses On The Game Of Bowls

Written for "The Listener" by

ERIC

BAKER

He was sitting on the bank during the Dominion Bowling Championships in Christchurch — an elderly man who followed every movement of the players in front of him, and murmured to himself now and then what he would have done in the circumstances had he been in the contest. I got into conversation with him. The old player dived into his pocket-book and offered numerous cuttings from newspapers, magazines and other publications and pieced together, for my benefit, a concise history of the bowling art, together with a wealth of sidelights.

JR 351 years bowls has been one of the greatest outdoor pastimes in Great Britain. Its popularity spread with the colonising of the Dominions. Its only rival in age is archery, which is now springing up in various parts of New Zealand, going sometimes under the ugly name of toxophily! Bowlers may be seen on club greens in every part of the Dominion in the summer months, pursuing their leisurely but skilful game. When winter comes they flock to indoor greens, where they play on expensive floors of felt. Few games have a more interesting or romantic history.

Laws forbidding bowls were passed by Edward III. because it was feared that young men who should have been at the butts with their bows and arrows were wasting their time on the greens. Pessimists of that age declared that England had become effete and pleasure-loving. They probably thought that bowls was about to undermine the morale of the country; that she would never again fight for her liberties. But like many another prophecy about England it was unfounded. Even after gunpowder had replaced the bow and arrow the ban on bowling continued. In 1455, there were bowiing alleys attached to London, but they became the haunt of disreputable people..

In times of religious and political dissension it was always considered possible that men might gather at these bowling alleys ostensibly to bowl but actually to plot against the government. Simultaneously the game developed a respectable and social following. It became popular in private homes. Kings who forbade the game to their subjects played it with the nobles behind garden walls. Shakespeare’s Game The writings of Shakespeare suggest that he was a player. They also prove three things — the mark was already called the jack in Elizabethan times, the woods were biased and women were fond of the game. Some men bowlers in New Zealand express surprise when they hear

of women taking up the game and forming clubs, and there is a widespread belief that this is a new development. But all they are doing is to revive a venerable aspect of the game. In "Richard the Second" Shakespeare has the following dialogue between the Queen and the Lady-in-Waiting: The Queen: What sport shall we devise here in this garden to drive away the heavy thought of care? The Lady: Madam, we will play at bowls.

The Queen: ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, and that my fortune runs against the bias. And no doubt Nell Gwynn threw a pretty wood, or would it be an orange? Pepys describes the great lords and ladies "in brave condition" playing a game of "bowles" in Whitehall Gardens. In Scotland New Zealand bowlers should doff their panamas to fellow woodsmen of Scotland, for the modern game owes its rebirth to those Scots who gave it a constitution, took it out of the tavern and put it on the club or the municipal green, and above all developed the democratic spirit which every bowler

prizes as one of the greatest characteristics of the game. "Some people," said the old bowler, polishing his spectacles preparatory to having a roll-up during the lunch hour, "will persist in calling bowls an old man’s hobby. Nothing makes me so annoyed. Why, man alive, it’s an art, a science, needing a keen eye and the best of reasonable health." Bowls: is entirely free from professionalism. It is an amateur game, a sociable game. It breeds good fellowship. On the bowling green snobs are as popular as a grass grub. Even after all the strenuousness of Dominion tournament play bowlers will tell you that the days spent on the green are, to them, the happiest of all.