Hunter Wells: Why indoor bowls is the ultimate country night out

While an indoor bowls night out was not what Hunter Wells had in mind, he's still talking about it 55 years later. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hunter Wells writes for the Weekend Sun and Coast & Country News.

It’s taken three editions of Coast & Country News to arrive at this moment and this iconic entertainment hub, the venue for “a city ninny’s big country night out”.

There’s a carpark full of grubby Holden station wagons and one sad, inadequate light over the entrance to the community hall, situated 45 minutes from anywhere.

Tweed sports coats and twin sets are making their way inside, from where comes an unmistakable call.

“On the backhand Doris.”

No MC tonight, just skips.

“And jack high please Doris.”

Really? Indoor bowls? Is this how some farmers spend their one cold, miserable, dark night off each fortnight?

Why not a convivial roll-up on a real bowling green and a couple of shandies with your mates on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the sun?

“Can’t!” explains The Hat.

“Crutching.”

Crutching? Wouldn’t you prefer a roll-up to staring up a sheep’s butt with its attendant dags and blowflies? All wet, woolly, and stinky?

“Yes, but there’s always farm stuff to do during daylight hours.”

So, every second Monday night between 7pm and 9.30pm is one of the few, if only, windows of opportunity for these farmers to relax, have a game and a moan and groan with like-minded souls, and a cup of over-steeped tea and a slice of “the missus’s” Madeira cake.

Interesting that a lot of the women chose to team up.

They preferred to socialise on the mat rather than compete.

And that was easier achieved without constant direction from husbands.

So that night, I joined The Hat and 30,000 other indoor bowlers from nearly 800 clubs around the country for a roll-up, a big country night out.

It took exactly four bowls for me to make a dick of myself, for me to get the bias wrong and send my bowl scuttling off the mat into the neighbouring game.

The Hat gave the same scornful look he gave me the day I almost fell into the offal pit, and he had to rescue me.

I still have bad dreams about falling three metres into a bed of bloated and putrefied sheep carcasses.

A big country night out?

Indoor bowls wasn’t quite what I had in mind but suffice to say, I am still talking about it 55 years later.