Man on a mission
Mike Wood’s house is easy to spot. Several boat hulls rear up over the garden walls. Through a side gate and it’s a short walk, past multiple wheelchairs and more boats, to the back garden workshop. The noise of drilling masks my entrance.
Mike is sitting at the bench, tools and bits of model aircraaft laid out before him – his other hobby, or one of them. Competitive sailing was his big thing for years but the drive has eased somewhat.
“I’ve mellowed,” he says with a smile, as we chat over a coffee in the home he shares with wife Irina.
Mike was 33, a professional motorcyclist who raced for Honda, when a lorry hit his bike while he was riding to work. “I lost everything,” he says gently.
That was 1978 and several months in Stoke Mandeville hospital followed, with treatment and rehabilitation that required him to play sport. He found himself winning at archery, then tried wheelchair rugby and field athletics.
“I’m a C6 spinal injury, which means I shouldn’t have as much
