Sidmouth ladies contested the annual Ladies Joan Jeffery Trophy internal competition, writes Carol Smith.

It was good to see that there were plenty of entries including a couple of our newer ladies. Some very close games ensued with just the odd shot between winning or losing.

Mary Bristow, Sheila Faulkner, Ann Capon and skip Susie Bonnell won their match by a single shot at 15-14 and they now take on the quartet of Jan J Bates, Wendy Cox, Janice Quinn and skip Brenda Somerfield who also had a narrow success, in their case by a margin of two shots.

Continuing the 'close encounters of the bowling kind' theme, the team of Gill Cronk, Joan Monaghan, Joan Crook and skip Sue Turner secured victory by the smallest of margins - a single shot - winning 19-18 to move into the next round where they will meet Emma Crow, Christa Turner, Sandra Wheeler and skip Chris Hamer.

The next round of this popular competition is the semi-final stage with the matches set to be played on Thursday, March 5 with a 12.30om start and the very best of luck to all players involved.

Sidmouth ladies played a friendly fixture at home to Axminster who, unfortunately, could only field enough players for two rinks rather than three. Nevertheless, it was a very good friendly close game with Sidmouth winning on one rink and drawing on the second and that all added up to an overall 31-25 Sidmouth success. The winning home rink was the one of Lorna Lever, Anita Mason, Connie Tolley and skip Elaine Reed, who won 18-12.

Alas, the result in the semi-final of the Devon TopClub (Lacemakers) competition that was played at Honiton was not so good!

Of the five disciplines we only managed to win two. That said, both the four-wood singles and triples were pretty close, but sadly, both were lost!

There was Sidmouth success courtesy of Sue Turner winning the two wood singles and the four of Jan J Bates, Mary Turner, Susie Bonnell and skip Valerie Newnham also won - well done to them and here's hoping for better things in this competition next year!

A little snippet of information that many of you probably know but I only learned about today.

Queen Victoria commissioned a christening robe to be made of beautiful Honiton Lace. It was used for every Royal Christening until our Queen Elizabeth decided, in 2004, it was looking a little fragile and so ordered another to be made exactly the same to replace it and that one has been in use ever since!