Sex & Bowls & Rock and Roll
How I swapped my rock dreams for village greens
Alex Marsh
For R, with thanks for putting up with me.
Table of Contents
It was a new day yesterday, but it’s an old one now
‘Are you sure that we’re meant to be here?’ I scuffed my feet over the shingle, not willing to let this go. ‘It doesn’t matter that we’re not members?’
‘I’m a member,’ reassured Big Andy, pulling his bag out of the boot. I was already intimidated by its professionally battered look, as if it had been passed down through generations of top-level bowls players. Big Andy had always struck me as somebody who would be good at any sport – he is just one of those people. Personally, I have always suspected people who are good at sport – I certainly never thought that I’d end up being friends with one. Perhaps his likeability was just a ruse, in order to lull me into a false sense of security before he chucked me in the showers and stole my dinner money.
‘Yes, but we’re not,’ I insisted, jerking my head towards Short Tony who had jumped down from the back seat. At least he would be as culpable as me. Big Andy didn’t answer this, clearly not appreciating my genuine concerns.
I did not even have the right shoes.
The green itself was sheltered behind a low wooden fence that shielded from public view a raised concrete path and two weatherbeaten benches. Big Andy placed his gear on one of these; Short Tony followed suit with me lagging behind, surveying the scene with narrow, wary eyes, Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Bowls.
‘What if a man comes and shouts at us?’ I wondered aloud.
I have never been a particularly confident type – at least, not without a guitar in my hand. All the key memories from my early life are scary, nerve-inducing ones: accidentally wandering into a fierce lady’s garden in order to pick acorns from her oak tree. Discovering that the hand that I’d reached up to grip tightly for reassurance wasn’t actually my grandmother’s, but belonged to a random stranger who happened to be getting off the same bus. Getting the phone number wrong on a big press advert for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and thus ensuring that a Barnet pensioner was telephoned at ten-minute intervals by people seeking tickets for a grand Tchaikovsky gala at the Royal Albert Hall.
There are two types of people in Britain – people with the confidence to take risks with social etiquette, and people who spend their lives concerned that a man will come and shout at them.
‘Who’d shout at us?’ asked Big Andy.
I considered this.
‘The groundsman.’
‘Naaah. He’s fine.’
My nervousness did not abate. I didn’t know any of the other club members and I did not want to start our relationship off on the wrong foot – certainly not as a shoutee.
‘Some other important club official?’
‘Earlier this year, we came up here on our own a lot,’ he insisted. ‘It’s practice. And practice is always encouraged.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘How will you know whether you want to play,’ he demanded, ‘if you don’t know whether you’re any good or not?’
Short Tony, who was looking upon the experiment as the start of a potentially interesting new hobby, similarly did not have proper bowls shoes. But they were at least brown, and from a distance they looked like proper bowls shoes. Mine