Decorative photoProud to be Me features ordinary and extraordinary people from all walks of life in the Selwyn District. To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, on December 3 , Coen Lammers spoke to Hazel Littlejohn, New Zealand’s Disabled Bowls Player of the Year from Darfield, a trailblazer for inclusion.

Hazel Littlejohn is a relative newcomer to the world of bowls and the Selwyn District, but is already deeply ingrained in the local community.

The diminutive woman from Darfield is the manager at local poultry farm and has become a familiar and respected face on the local bowling greens.

Littlejohn was this year honoured as the Disabled Bowls Player of the Year after claiming the singles world title at the International Deaf Bowls Championships in Scotland, and the accolades on the Bowls New Zealand website shows how much her success, but also her engaging personality made her such a popular choice.

“Hazel ticks the ‘wonderful human being’ box, the ‘super hard worker’ box and the ‘very, very good bowler’ box,” wrote the judges about Selwyn local, who moved to New Zealand in 2012 from the UK after the youngest had left the parental nest.

She says they dropped their daughter off at University and decide to move to New Zealand soon after, initially for a short period in Auckland and Balclutha, before settling in Darfield.

Littlejohn’s son has since followed her to New Zealand and lives in Queenstown with his partner and the family’s first grandchild.

After earning a good living as a gymnastics coach back in the UK, Littlejohn struggled to find similar work opportunities in New Zealand.

“Gymnastics took up a lot of my time in the UK, but there were no real gymnastics jobs in New Zealand, so I slowly moved away from gymnastics and went back into the dairy industry, in which I had worked in the UK as well,” says Littlejohn.

Without the regular coaching commitment, the “sporty girl” suddenly had a lot more time on her hands and decided to have a crack at bowls.

Littlejohn proved to be a natural and soon found herself competing at regional, national and international levels in both the Disabled as Open categories.

With support from her local community, including the Selwyn District Council, the Darfield bowler has been travelling around the country and overseas collecting trophies, with the highlight last year’s singles world title at the International Deaf Bowls Championships.

To achieve that success, Littlejohn had to go to some extraordinary lengths to prepare for larger greens and longer grass in the UK.

The Darfield local mowed her own backyard to the same length as the Scotland greens, used croquet fields to practice and bowled diagonally across the local bowling greens to mimic the 40-yard greens.

Littlejohn practiced countless hours under the tutelage of Commonwealth Games representative Taylor Bruce, who shared her experience of bowling on Scottish greens, and the hard work paid off with a world title and a silver medal in the pairs.

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This month, the Selwyn Bowler will be defending her national title in the disabilities category, but she also competes regularly in the Open sections to show that her hearing disability is no barrier to compete at any level.

“But is not always easy to focus when I play bowls, because when you cannot hear, your brain is so used to constantly look for visual clues. Every bit of movement can be a distraction, so I have to work extra hard to keep my head in the game,” admits Littlejohn, who has embraced her position of a role model and is currently the President of New Zealand Deaf Lawn Bowls.

“I love my bowls and I’m really passionate about helping other deaf bowlers get into the game because I know what they are going through,” says the Littlejohn, who had a rough time growing up with a hearing impairment back in England.

“I found it quite hard when I was young, because the teachers didn’t really understand me and I kind of felt that no-one was really interested,” says Littlejohn, who can thank her grandfather for taking her regularly to the library, which changed her life.

“I went to the library every weekend with a friend, and I taught myself to read, learning a bit at the time. I still love reading and just finished a large book in one day yesterday.”

As teachers did not offer what she needed, Littlejohn got her education in the school of life.

“I was always out on my bike, learning about the world as a visual learner,” says Littlejohn who taught herself sign language and how to lipread.

“I couldn’t hear what people were saying, so I learned how to lipread. Once you work out a few words, so you sort of start guessing and assuming the other words,” laughs Littlejohn who says that guessing words can lead to some interesting situations.

“Sometimes I say ‘Pardon?’ when I miss a word, and people will start saying the whole sentence again, and then they are halfway through and I would know what they are saying and start answering, which can be a bit confusing for the person you are talking to.”

She has been trying to brush up on her sign language, which is fortunately very similar as the UK version, and currently has a staff member with a hearing impairment, who helps her to “keep my sign language polished”.

Littlejohn’s coach Ashley Paul argues that being deaf is one of hardest disabilities to life with, because the outside world cannot easily recognise the disability, and experienced a steep learning curve entering the deaf community.

“When I went to our first competition, I had never seen so much activity with everyone moving their hands and constantly looking around. They are all hyper alert, constantly scanning for signals and trying to engage with your look.

“Deaf people are very, very apt at reading people’s faces. They got that down to a T, so never underestimate a deaf person.”

Last modified: 04 Dec 2025 8:47am