Alex Marsh - Sex & Bowls & Rock and Roll - How I Swapped My Rock Dreams for Village Greens

How I swapped my rock dreams for village greens

For R, with thanks for putting up with me.

Cover Page

Title Page Sex & Bowls & Rock and Roll How I swapped my rock dreams for village greens

PREFACE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Notes and acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘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 looked like non-proper non-bowls trainers. I studied the terrain carefully. There was some long grass at the far end, where the green ended and met the farmland beyond. If a man came and shouted at us for playing without permission then I would attempt to quickly step into the long grass, thus camouflaging my footwear and ensuring that he would not be able to follow up his ‘Trespasser!’ shout with: ‘Plus you have not got proper bowls shoes on!’

I tried to make myself relax. It didn’t help that I was probably going to be rubbish at this, and thus make myself look like an idiot. I took a deep breath. There was no man in sight. Instead there was the weak but encouraging-looking sun of an autumnal, early lunchtime casting dewy shadows on an English bowling green.

‘Pint, anyone?’ offered Short Tony, motioning his head towards the big pub that stood looking over us like a comforting older brother appearing with a towel after the rough beating-up kids have been dispersed.

This seemed like a good idea, but I was cautious.

‘Are we allowed?’ I asked. ‘To take drinks onto the green, I mean.’

Short Tony disappeared off to buy beer.

The grass was soft and earthy, with well-worn patches from a season’s play. I padded around guiltily in my clandestine trainers. Big Andy handed me two of his woods; I tossed them down carelessly and they made small indentations in the surface. I drew breath sharply, but no shout came. He then disappeared into the small shed that adjoined the green, re-emerging seconds later with a white ball. Disappearing into a shed! Some people have all the self-confidence. If illegal walking on a bowling green wearing incorrect shoes merited a shout, I was sure that shed-disappearing would warrant at least something cruel and unusual.

The bowls police failed to leap out from behind a hedge and charge us with electric batons.

I picked up a single wood. It was wet from the grass, but felt comfortable in my hand, warm and smooth, not the wood of a guitar body, but a pleasing object nonetheless. I have nice dainty, nimble hands and I suspected that it might be slightly too large a size for them, and perhaps a little heavy for me to be totally sure of control. But I did not say anything for fear of bowls ridicule.

Big Andy, my tutor, lobbed the cott ahead to the other side – it bumped and bobbed on the grass. He then knelt and expertly pitched his wood, which rested intimidatingly close to the target. I watched Short Tony reappear from the pub, ambling up the short hillock and across the gravel car park with a tray of beers the colour of bowls shoes.

And then it was my turn. It is always good to give new things a try. But I couldn’t honestly see it being my sort of thing.

‘Excuse me?’

There is a voice. I turn, surprised, from the post box to locate its source.

A man is ambling over from a small four-by-four thing. He is demonstrably from a town somewhere – it is one of those designer jobs that no genuine country-dweller from round here would dream of possessing. The engine chugs over, chug chug chug chug chug. He is clearly the source of the ‘Excuse me.’ I allow my letter to fall from my hand into the post box’s receptive womb, easing my wrist from its slot and giving my new acquaintance my full attention.

Silver-haired, he is wearing immaculate cream pressed slacks, which reveal that he is comfortably off and retired, and probably has a wife named Pat.