Bryant, who won 14 World Bowls Championship titles indoors and out, and five Commonwealth Games gold medals, died last week aged 88.

When he arrived as the honoured guest at the neat little club in one of the historic, higgledy-piggledy areas of the town - a location long since given up, as with the football club, for a bundle of money and an outskirts venue - he was at the apogee of his career.

Having won his first world outdoor singles title in 1966, Bryant had regained that position at the 1980 Championships in Frankston in Australia, adding further golds in the triples and team events. Earlier that same year, at Coatbridge in Scotland, he had won his second world indoor title. And two years earlier, at the Edmonton 1978 Games, he had won his final Commonwealth gold, securing a third consecutive singles title.

Had there been an inter-galactic title on offer, Bryant would have won that too. But with this sporting superhuman there appeared to be a reverse of the old Superman routine. It was as if Clarke Kent, before he could perform his wonders, had to race to the nearest convenient spot to change into a mild, courteous and bespectacled figure with a pipe clenched between his teeth.

Appearances can be deceptive, of course.

On that sunny, distant day in one of Hertfordshire’s "sleepy market towns", Bryant did not disappoint. His long, silver-stemmed pipe was in place; indeed, it appeared an essential counterbalance in his bowling, and earned him another gold for his CV when he won the 1986 Pipe Smoker of Year Award.

Reporting for the Herts and Essex Observer on his three exhibition matches - marking the opening of a new greens irrigation system in case you wanted to know - I was clearly fascinated by the sight of this God of Bowls in action.

"First he crouched and set his sights, weighing the wood with both hands. Then up, the wood turned inwards by his wrist on the backswing, turned back as his hand moved forward, and transferred onto a smooth arc that curved unerringly towards the jack.

"As the wood travelled, Bryant flexed his left knee and lifted his right leg behind him before stepping sideways and forward to survey his effort."

In the first of six-end matches the club’s oldest player, 78-year-old Cyril Bailey, took an early lead before Bryant scored two in the last end to draw 5-5. Next up was the club’s youngest player, 17-year-old Simon Smith, who went 0-6 but recovered to finish at 4-6.

Taylor led for four ends before the affable visitor produced a world-class shot, threading the wood through a crowd of others to lay it cheek-to-cheek with the jack.

That put Bryant 5-4 up, but Taylor knocked him off the jack and even one of the world champion’s renowned firing shots couldn’t prevent the home player earning a 5-5 draw.

How much diplomacy was involved in those scores one can only guess. But you fancy that the green was pre-irrigated with the quality of mercy, which droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…

Bryant’s final international medal would be won 15 years later, when he was 63, as he and his long-time bowls partner Tony Allcock - multiple times a world champion in his own right - took the silver medal at the World Indoor Championships. Together they won six indoor world pairs titles.

In his book 1988 Bowls Skills, co-written with David Rhys Jones, Allcock recalls the efforts opponents would make to psych him out.

Comments - such as "What bad luck you are having today!" or "I don’t think your bowls are helping you" - were made to him "in such a sincere and charming manner that no one could possibly take exception."

But Bryant was an operator at a different level, a man able to win while giving the impression that something of far greater importance was playing on his mind.

"Talking of behaviour that saps confidence," Allcock added, "I have always thought that David Bryant’s generosity when applauding a good opposition delivery is so sporting it is almost intimidating."

Now there was brilliance: turning sportsmanship into a weapon. And as Allcock went on to point out, such artless generosity would more often than not be followed by a ruthless response which would leave no avenue open to an opponent. So you could stick that in your pipe and smoke it…