It has been 55 years since Hattieann Gilbert went out on a whim for the night of bowling that swiftly launched her as a surprise champion.

Now she is pulling together the story of a sensational bowling career that propelled her in 2005 to the Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame.

Back in February 1962, she was 19-year-old Hattieann Morrisette, whose friends pestered her into coming along to the new Lily Bowl near Shelly Bay.

“I looked in there and said there was no way,” recalled Mrs Gilbert, who knew nothing about the sport and did not want people laughing at her.

But the opposite came true: she started playing and “never came out”, she said.

“I was back there the next night. I took it as a gift from God. I had no idea of the game, but it went right from there. We had our first championship there in June and I won every single award. I won everything.”

People initially attributed it to beginner’s luck, but as she kept on winning, year after year, she told people that “luck doesn’t go like that”.

“I used to feel very bad when I won. Sometimes I cried. Some people were making me feel like I was taking everything.”

It flourished into an international career.

The Women’s International Bowling Conference of May 1964 marked her first trip off the island — with more to come over the next three years.

Other wins included second place at the world championships in 1975 and 1979, and first place at the Tournament of the Americas in 1970.

Her career took her to the Philippines, Iran and Thailand, before she retired from serious competition in 1987. Mrs Gilbert — who married Weldon Gilbert in 1985 — had been a celebrity back home for 25 years. With her press clippings and photographs starting to fade, she has begun to compile her story, Bowling My Way: 1962 to 1987, with the help of Xlibris Publishing.

“It’s time to put it in a book,” she said. “You end up losing this stuff. It’s been hard getting help with it, and sometimes I felt down.

“It was difficult to get anywhere with it. But they are working with me on it. And it’s a lot.”