Since a diagnosis that he was losing his sight David Cox has become one of the best visually impaired bowlers in the country.
The 74-year-old is president of the Summerhill Visually Impaired Bowling Club, which is based at Aberdeen Indoor Bowling Club.
As a fully sighted player Cox bowled at Westburn between 1988 and 2002 before giving the game up to play golf instead.
But when he was informed in 2017 that he was losing his central vision he returned to bowls at Summerhill.
Since then he’s been Grampian regional indoor singles champion three times and this year was runner-up in the Scottish Indoor Championship.
Cox also finished third in the Scottish mixed pairs and outdoor he has qualified for the last four of the Scottish Championship.
He said: “I had to get cataracts removed and when they took them away they found an underlying fault which they can’t sort.
“There’s not a lot I can do about it so there’s no point in worrying about it too much.
“But being a former mechanical and structural engineer it was a bit of a downer.
“I used to be able to change a plug in about two seconds, whereas, now it takes me about two hours.
“Right now 35% to 40% of my central vision is gone. If I look out to the road by my house and there’s a car parked I can’t see it, but I can see what’s around it.
“But going back to playing bowls has been a really positive thing for me and it’s been good to do so well.”
As well as competing in visually impaired events Cox also plays for a fully sighted team at Aberdeen Indoor Bowling Club.
He added: “They’re all quite amazed by it.
“I use a monocular which allows me to see where the jack is, but using that I can’t judge the distances or angles.
“So I rely on the people standing at the jack end, they tell me which hand to play and how far away my bowls and the other bowls are.
“When we play visually impaired we’ve got a shouter at each end who tell you where your bowl would be on a clock face if the jack was the middle of the clock.
“That can be difficult to get your head round to start with, but it’s good once you understand it and I rely on that.”
Summerhill Visually Impaired Bowling Club meet every Friday from 12pm to 2pm and are happy to welcome new members with coaching tuition available for beginners.
Cox said: “We were looking for people so if anyone that’s visually impaired would like to try it I’d recommend coming along.”