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ONCE bachelor and spinster balls were the place single country folk could get dressed up in the search for love.
It’s now about various states of undress with revellers at Holbrook’s B & S saying it was about meeting friends, getting drunk and picking up.
Hamish McGeoch was one of more than 1000 people who arrived at the Holbrook racecourse for last night’s New Year’s Eve event.
The 20-year-old, from Katherine in the Northern Territory, said it was his third Holbrook B & S and he had the perfect plan to bag a girl.
He had painted a larger-than-life version of the board game Twister on the back of his ute.
“It’s to get the girls in the back and then you rig it — left leg goes there, right leg there,” Mr McGeoch said with a grin.
“I might not look intelligent but I am.”
Mr McGeoch’s musings were momentarily interrupted by a friend pulling his pants down and showing The Border Mail photographer his buttocks.
“Take a photo of this,” his friend said.
Holbrook boys Nick Pugh, 24, and Kerrod Spokes, 21, were relaxing in a blow-up pool a short walk away with empty beer bottles bobbing beside them.
“It’s so much fun,” Mr Spokes said. “Just hanging out with mates.”
Di Chaplin, 26, from Melbourne, and her friend Kate Tyquin, 28, from Gippsland were walking with drinks in hand towards the main stage where all was ready for the night’s music.
They travel to B & S balls across the state and they had planned their priorities for Holbrook’s event.
“Catching up with mates is the first priority,” Miss Tyquin said.
“Drinking second, boys third.”
Miss Chaplin was not fussy about who she would kiss as the clock struck midnight.
“Anyone who’s standing in front of me,” she said.
Holbrook committee member Debbie Mills said when she had attended B & S balls growing up in Hay, it was a completely different affair.
She said the men would dress in suits and it was invitation-only.
“The local gentry would have all the young, unattached males and females attend,” Ms Mills said.
“To know someone who was on the committee to be able to get an invite to a B & S ball — you were in. It’s morphed into something else.”
Ms Mills said the Holbrook bypass, due to finish in June, would not effect the future of the event.
“They’ll turn up anyway,” she said.
She said it was a big ticket event for the town everything sourced from Holbrook businesses.