‘I was a barrister – now I’m a champion gravy wrestler’

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Louise Thomas

Editor

I’m the Guinness Book of World Records holder for most male wins in the World Gravy Wrestling Championship. I’ve won six times and hold the title of the most consecutive wins in a row. It’s just one of quite a number of dubious world titles I hold.

I’m also the five-time winner of the Bird Man, a competition where you build a flying machine and soar off a pier, and I’m a former World Clog Cobbing Champion – that involves throwing old boots really far. I’m a World Egg Throwing Champion, and I hold the wife-carrying record, for carrying the heaviest wife in Wife Carrying history. I’m also the only man to have competed carrying two wives at a time.

People always ask, how did I get into all of this?

Back in 2006, I went to the World Bog Snorkelling Championship in Wales for a fun day out and to raise a bit of money for charity in the process. I had a great time and the people there made me feel very welcome. I decided to do a few events a year. One day I saw an advert online for gravy wrestling and thought, “This could be fun”. So I drove up to a supermarket car park in Wigan to roll about in gravy with six other people while confused shoppers walked past and threw a few coppers into the bin for us.

At the time I won my first gravy wrestling championship, I was training as a barrister (I have degrees in both biochemistry and law). I was called to the bar in 2009, and I had to make a decision about whether to stay in the law – which would have taken over my life – or follow my passion. I made a choice to follow my passion.

I eventually set up Always With a Smile, a foundation to raise money for local charities through a plethora of outrageous, very British and very eccentric events. Gravy wrestling is the epitome of a traditional community event, and those are sadly disappearing from the landscape these days. We do between 35 to 75 events a year. None of us take a wage, including me.

We don’t design the events – they’re associated with the region they’re in. It’s about taking local traditions and that heritage and trying to raise money with it. For example, gravy wrestling is specific to Lancashire – sausages, hotpots, it’s what they do – and we raise £4,500 every year for East Lancashire Hospice.

Gravy isn’t a normal part of my diet, so I can still stomach it. We use about 2,000 gallons of the stuff. A lot of people don’t know this but the gravy we wrestle in is actually hot. I don’t have a favourite flavour, but one time we had an issue when someone decided to use onion gravy and it got into all of our eyes and left us in tears.

Overall, what started out as just me has morphed into something huge. People travel all over the country to visit our events. I’ve since got into modelling, acting and photography. I landed my first commercial after a photographer spotted me doing an event. I was a fireman in a Harpic ad, which ran for four years. I was in the film The Northman and I play a guy called Hot Slippy Jesus on an ITV show called Apocalypse Wow. I’ve just got back from Belgium doing a commercial.

People ask me: well, why does all of this matter? When you see what the power of a smile can do, it’s very rewarding. You should see the look in a kid’s eyes when he pins you in the gravy or knocks you out. At 14 or 15, he’ll remember that and he’ll maybe think of passing that feeling on. Hopefully, it helps the next generation of people to make a small difference.

All of these competitions have, though, taken a toll on my body. Since I started the foundation, I’ve had both my ankles and both my shoulders operated on. I’ve had surgery on my hip and three stomach surgeries. I’ve put my body through hell. It’s very intense. But I don’t regret any of it. I had to take this year off gravy wrestling because of my third stomach surgery, but I’m quite keen to get back.

My friends and family accept it now and I’ve been recognised locally in my town – Hinckley in Leicester – as well as nationally with the Pride of Britain and British Citizen Awards and being invited to Downing Street. It’s all great and nice to be recognised in some way, but I would swap that all to see the expression on someone’s face who we’ve helped out.

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