Birmingham is just about as far away as you can get from the home of this year’s Para Bowler of the Year (B5-B8), Pam Walker.

Pam has just returned home from representing New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games in the lawn bowls in the B6-B8 para category.  ‘Home’ is in the settlement of Lauder in the Maniototo in Central Otago, where Pam and her husband Bruce have had 6 seasons hosting a Bed & Breakfast on the  Central Otago Rail Trail.

“The Games were an amazing experience,” says Pam. “Birmingham, and Leamington Spa (where the bowls venue was) put on a great show.  The weather was perfect.  The accommodation at the University of Warwick Games Village was fantastic.  And there were heaps of incredibly helpful, happy and smiling volunteers everywhere.”

There were only two events in the B6-B8 para lawn bowls … the men’s, plus the women’s pairs where New Zealand was represented by Pam and her team mate Lynda Bennett.

“We came up against great pairs,” she says, “but missed out on the semi-finals.  It was very close … we lost two games on the last end.  The other teams were lovely to play against … they were all so friendly.  Particularly, the Scots.  They ended up winning the gold.  They were awesome.”

“We had a great lead-up to competition too.  The Wellesbourne Bowls Club hosted the New Zealand bowls team.  They loved having us.  And they really loved the haka we did for them.  The President’s wife, Rema, teared up when we all left!”

Pam and Bruce spent most of August away.  “We popped up to Edinburgh, and even across to France to Paris.  We thought we’d make the most of the adventure since we’d come so far!”

Pam and Bruce aren’t averse to an adventure.

Prior to the B&B on the Rail Trail, they lived in a motorhome in Australia for three and a half years. “We travelled about taking portraits of Aboriginal families,” she says.  “I was on the camera and Bruce would set it up the lighting and backdrops.  It was amazing.”

They were both already bowlers.  “Bruce started playing about 30 years ago.  He kept harping at me to take up the game, and 15 or so years ago I relented.  Much to my surprise, I became hooked!”

Despite the fact that Pam already suffered a debilitating auto-immune disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Pam played as an able-bodied player for her first seven or eight years.

“I learnt I had AS when I was about 21,” says Pam. “It’s inherited in your genes … my father was a carrier although he was never affected by it.  It’s an inflammatory disease which caused the bones in my spine to fuse.  That’s why I have a hunched-over posture.  There’s no cure for it, but every 6 weeks I get infusions of a drug at Dunedin Hospital which keeps the worst at bay.”

“Despite that, it’s a big call to decide you want to play as a para,  When a friend told me I should, it still took me another two years to make up my mind.  Now I love it.  Although as you would expect, most of my bowls is against able-bodied players at the Omakau Bowling Club ‘down the road’.”

And Pam hasn’t let her AS get in the way of her bowls.  She is in the Central Otago Inter-Centre team which will compete in the finals to be held in Auckland in October this year.

“I’ve won my share of centre and club titles,” she says. “And I haven’t finished yet!”

We wouldn’t expect any different.  Besides there’s another Commonwealth Games in four year’s time in Victoria, Australia.  We’d love to see you there, Pam.

Congratulations for being Bowls New Zealand’s Para Bowler of the Year (B5-B8).