Martin Biddle is one of four members of the bowls team at the Margaret Catchpole Bowls Club that work on the bowls green throughout the year. The club was formed in 1948 and bowl both Bowls England and Federation bowls. There are around 100 matches a year held on the green and they currently have around about 40 members that play regularly.
For many years the club struggled along with old machinery that always needed repairs. Recently they have been awarded grants to improve their club facilities and they were advised to get a eco-friendly mower on the back of this. Their search brought them to the Allett Stirling and since buying it Martin himself hasn't been able to get the boys off it ''The boys actually love using it so much so that I've only ever managed to use it once since we've had it. They're all fighting to get to use it. It's a nice easy machine to use, it's an easy machine to set up, it's all turn dials. You don't need spanners, you don't need measuring gauges you just turn a dial set the machine up push the button and away you go''
The club have bought three cartridges so far including the Verticut cartridge and a cutting cartridge which are the two that they mainly use on then green. 'They're so easy to change you just pull a lever down, pull the old cartridge out, push the new cartridge in, push the lever back and within about a minute the cartridges are changed as easy as that''. The Stirling is super quiet and the bowling green sits in-between a pub and some allotments where people obviously go to relax. There have certainly been no complaints from the allotments since the arrival of the new Stirling mower.
''With the modern way of thinking being environmentally friendly I think this machine is the way to go if you start speaking to people to get access to grants. With an environmental mower on the list that would give you two or three steps forward in getting the grants''
Many thanks to Martin for his time