Bellaghy is much the same as many of the Northern towns which line the spare mid-Ulster landscape. At midday on Saturday, its single street bustles gently and there is some activity at the GAA pitch, which has known its share of glory and sorrow.

Margaret Johnston, current World bowls champion, grandmother, is resting up at her home in a tidy estate at the far end of town. The lawns are trim, a few kids mingle around bicycles, and red, white and blue paint festoons the kerb stones.

"Ask anyone in Bellaghy where I live," she advises. "They'll set you right."

Although it is a mild day, she keeps an impressive fire going and her warm features glow as she chats easily in a broad and sonorous Derry accent.

"I just got back from Darlington there last night. And now it's two weeks off and then I'm off for Australia," she informs you, clapping her hands at the prospect.

She is a youthful looking fifty-something, light in her movements and brimming with optimism.

Talk of bowls flows from her as though it is something she gets around to in between baby-sitting grandchildren and running the house. It's not that she doesn't care about the game; she does, deeply. It's just that since she first picked up a bowl she found she could virtually master her sport.

Found that the smooth, cool grip of the bowl, the fluid movements of her arm and the seamless transfer of weight from her fingertips to the surface felt inherently right.

Margaret Johnston has been drawing perfect contours with bowls for over three decades now. She has ripped almost every record in the game asunder while scarcely causing a ripple on national sporting consciousness.

"Och, well it started as a hobby. I was living in Tamlitocrilly in 1963 and it was really quiet. So the local Church of Ireland minister was starting up a bowls club and I went along, just out of curiosity."

In 1965 the Johnston family moved to Bellaghy, Co Derry, and Margaret joined the shortmat club in the Masonic Hall. She signed up and became a strong member of the small club but at that time, she says, bowls was still just a pastime.

"Then during the Troubles the pub across the road, Hamilton's, was blown up and the Hall was damaged a wee bit so the bowls club just left, moved to Kilray."

That relocation led to an invitation to join Ballymoney outdoor bowls club, some 40 miles away. A natural athlete and keen hockey player while at school, she found herself increasingly drawn to this sedate but mentally-taxing sport. A few years later, she entered the Irish Singles championship.

"That was in 19 and 79. Nessy Burnette from Dublin beat me. Then the following year I was beaten by Ovvy Brown in the semi-finals." She was 38 then and in 1981 received an invitation to travel to trials for the Irish team.

"Aye, for the Irish outdoor team," she laughs, "and I'll tell you, a lot of the old biddies didn't like the idea, they said, `there's people bowling for years and they never got the chance and why her?'." She has been a national team member since, and a lengthy list of titles now charts a seemingly inexorable rise to the peak of the sport.

In a 15-year span she has collected around 36 national and international titles.

"There are a lot of titles there right enough. I suppose 1992 will go down as the best year. No one has ever taken the World Singles and Pairs, that's a first. You know, people hear of me going all over the world for tournaments and say `yer one must be a millionaire'. But in the 30-odd tournaments I've won, I'd say I have made a total of about £500."

Bowls is hardly the sport for profiteers. Not only has the Derry champion failed to gain financially, she has slowly whittled away her life savings in pursuit of competition.

"Every contest I have gone to, except for the Commonwealths, I have paid for myself. In Darlington there, we paid £310 for the coach and ferry. You always travel the cheapest way. I stopped working three years ago and you know, once the barrel is empty, I'll have to quit the international scene."

There is a standard quip among internationals that in bowls, it's deemed an honour to pay to play for your country.

"The argument is that if you can't afford it, you can always put `not available' beside your name. And you know, if I was an international who was just surviving on the circuit, there is no way I'd go. Where is the incentive?"

Johnston IS something of a maverick. Although she has blazed a trail through the unseen world of bowls over the past decade, she poses something of a threat to its stultifying whispered gentility.

The world champion longs to take the game by the scruff of the neck and shake some raw energy into it.

"We need more young people, please," she implores. "Bowls is just going to coast along until all the old fogies die off and young people come in with new ideas. There are some younger men starting to get involved now, but very few women."

Practice is something of a drag for her. Bowling shortmat on her own is a chore; she doesn't like the quiet. Traditionally, she has touched perfection in the bigger championships like the Worlds or Commonwealth Games, which afforded her a chance to thrive on adrenalin.

"That's what you want. There is nothing more depressing than bowling somewhere and you can hear people cough. See the crowds and banners they have at the Gaelic football? If we had that, it would be great."

She recalls travelling to a British Isles tournament some years ago and meeting some car executives whose company was sponsoring the event.

"We got talking about sponsorship and he said to me, `Sponsor women's bowls? It won't happen. Sure where is the market value'?"

Sporadic attempts to secure corporate sponsorship from companies in the north-west have been met with a succession of closed doors. A few £100 from local councils have been the sum total of contributions.

"And I'm very grateful for that money. But in reality, any year costs between £4,000 and £5,000. I travel around so much and am seen at so many different tournaments that I thought it would have been perhaps worth the while of a clothing company to sponsor me. Something like 30,000 people participate in bowls in the British Isles. But that's the way it is."

Still, no regrets. She has won as many friends as titles in the sport and it has taken her to places far removed from Bellaghy.

"Sometimes you just see the hotel room and the bowling rink. But for the bigger championships, they always allow an extra day in case of rain on the outdoor rink and I always try and sightsee then. I chat to some of the local competitors and they take me around. Might as well. The chances are I won't be back to these places."

She always maintained that if she lasted until the end of 1998, she would be happy. Hopes to have a few more outings with her old Dublin sparring partner, Phylis Nolan.

The pair have established themselves as a fearsome duo since they began playing together a decade ago. Bowls has always been cross community and has ignored religious boundaries.

Johnston wishes other sports, the kind that feature in news pages regularly, could take at least that much from her game. "It has never been an issue, thankfully. People just take you as you are, as it should be."

The anonymity of bowls doesn't bother her unduly. It is an aspect she has grown accustomed to over time. It is unlikely, she says, that she will ever take up an administrative role in the sport. "It would bore me, I wouldn't enjoy it. And if I didn't enjoy it, I'd be no good at it."

She believes that some day bowls will manage to raise its profile, well after her own playing days are done. Arcane traditions still govern; for instance, women can only use club rinks in the afternoon. Evening time slots are reserved for the gentlemen.

Ballymoney has recruited some young male members over the past five years but female participation remains scant. "The young ones don't seem to want to get involved. It's a matter of making the game more attractive. That's the essential part."

Johnston will, in all likelihood, win another major title before the year's end. The world bowling fraternity will shake their heads in wonderment, the rest of the world will carry on oblivious.

She is uncertain as to how sporting history will come to judge her, unsure of how she'll be remembered. It is not something she has even considered in any great depth; her ability has been largely ignored throughout her playing days; why should she care for how we assess her legacy in retrospect?

"All I know is that nobody can take away from me what I have achieved. I'll always have that."

Record:

1983: Irish Rinks.

1984: Irish Singles and Pairs.

1986: Commonwealth Gold in Edinburgh.

1988: Bi-centenary Singles in Australia, gold in World Pairs with Dublin's Phylis Nolan, silver in World Singles.

1990: bronze in the Commonwealth Singles.

1992: World Singles Champion, World Pairs Champion with Phylis Nolan

1994: Commonwealth Gold.

1995: Irish Singles and Pairs.

1996: British Isles Singles and World Bowls pairs.

1997: Irish Pairs.