2 minute read
"A Club for Us"
(To be sung to the tune of “Johnny Came Marching Home”)
Advertisement
We wanted to play some bowls again, Hoorah! Hoorah! But we needed a Club to roll them down, Hoorah! Hoorah! We’d had a break from our local Club, and missed our bowls and had no pub, so map in hand and off in our car to find a Club for us.
Reid Highway traffic was a breeze, Hoorah! Hoorah! The other Clubs were passed with ease, Hoorah! Hoorah! The call of the coast was far too strong, we thought we couldn’t do any wrong. The Bowls and green are both top class, Sorrento’s the Club for us!
Once we arrived we knew for sure, Hoorah! Hoorah! Now were’ bowling with a view, Hoorah! Hoorah! A warm welcome and friendly bar, It’s worth the journey to come so far, with a sea breeze, no more can you ask, Sorrento’s the Club for us!
– Lesley Hughes
Jeff grew up in Northam and later moved to Perth to complete his secondary school education. He completed his degree in geology at UWA and worked on gas and oil rigs before being made an offer too good to refuse in Venezuela. “I had to grab an atlas to see where it was" he admits. After a successful stint there, Jeff took up job opportunities in Canada, the United States, Malaysia, China and New Zealand, probably making him the second most travelled geologist in the world after Apollo 17’s moonwalking Harrison Schmitt. Jeff then returned to Perth where he became a drilling engineer and designed gas and oil wells.
How was it growing up at the same time Thommo was creating havoc around the world? “I always wished him well” he said. “I wasn’t ribbed about having the same name as Thommo back then as I am on the bowling green these days” Jeff says. “But I simply tell everybody there will be no more bouncers.”
Lesley grew up on the “Gold Reef” near Johannesburg where her father was a mining engineer. She says she was known as a “mine meisie” (mine girl) and says at the age of 21, “I was out of there.” Lesley’s first husband was also a geologist and after firstly working as a laboratory technician in Cape Town, she did one year stints as a housewife in Alaska and in a Dr’s surgery in Montana.
Jeff, who has lived on his little farm for 34 years, describes it as “retirement heaven”, but when it all becomes too hard and he must pull up stumps, Jeff and Lesley have a plan.
The good oil from this affable ex geologist is that he and Lesley plan to buy a much smaller property near the coast to make it a lot easier to still play for Sorrento. Now, that’s got to be dedication and devotion in the extreme.
– Jim Woodward
