picture on front cover/dust jacket
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Title The Story of Bowls
Author Alfred H Haynes
Publisher Sporting Handbooks Ltd, London
First published 1972
ISBN None
Edition reviewed 1st
Hardback/softback Hardback
List price £2.00
Cover size (cm)
(height x width)
18.9 x 12.4
Number of pages 158
Number of pages with Coloured photos Black & white photos Line drawings
  None 16 None
Synopsis The occasion of the publication of this book is the 2nd World Bowls Tournament at Worthing in Sussex [1972] but the contents, the history and the attraction of The Story of Bowls, is such that it must be a vade mecum for bowlers for many years to come. As Mr J F Elms, Secretary of the English Bowling Association, says in his preface, 'one is immediately made aware of the time spent on research into the archives of history and the infinite patience required to produce such a fascinating book . . . The subject matter enables one to fold back the curtains of time and peer into the past: there is almost a sense of reliving those early days. Nor has the contemporary scene been forgotten . . . "

The author covers the history of bowls from 5000 BC through its early times, through its early vicissitudes in mediaeval England; he examines the enduring Drake legend, glances at the royal Stuart bowlers and moves on to consider the remarkable Mitchell - appendices give Mitchell's famous Code of Laws, and advice to bowlers from his Manual. Then he writes of the organisation and consolidation of the game and the part played in this by W G Grace, and of the spread of bowls all over the world and the growth of clubs and associations for men and for women. There are interesting chapters on old clubs and on club heraldry; the illustrations here are among the most fascinating in this extensively illustrated book.