Join Bartholomew Hall as we sit down with wheelchair shooter Bill Wilson - who found his sport after a life-changing injury on holiday.
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00:00Hello, and welcome to Invictus Sport, the only show on your TV dedicated to Kent's sporting
00:17action.
00:18I'm Bartholomew Hall.
00:19Today, we're bringing you an interview with Bill Wilson, a Maidstone dad whose life changed
00:23after an accident whilst on holiday in the Netherlands, which means he now needs a wheelchair
00:27to get around.
00:28After a life enjoying sport, nothing was stopping him from staying competitive and very quickly
00:32turned to shooting.
00:33We hope you enjoy.
00:35Bill Wilson, thank you very much for joining us on the programme again.
00:39Good to have you on, especially in this kind of new era of our show where we get to delve
00:43a bit deeper into the lives of some of our guests and people with interesting sporting
00:47backgrounds in the county.
00:50And you've got a very interesting story because before you turned to shooting, you've actually
00:55had a life where you've been very interested in sport.
00:57So tell me a bit about that long history that you've had.
01:00What was the sort of early days with yourself in sport?
01:02Yes.
01:03Good afternoon, Bartholomew.
01:04I'm glad to be back on your show.
01:08Yeah, I guess really my sporting career, basically an interest in sports commenced from my early
01:19boarding school days from the age of seven.
01:24I'll focus on that age seven.
01:25That's when I actually started playing rugby and only officially retired when I was 55.
01:33So that's 48 years of rugby and if we wanted to play football or soccer, as they called
01:43it back in those days, we had to do it in our own time.
01:46But no, rugby was the main focus.
01:48So that kicked it off and then obviously took up at private school hockey, cricket, athletics,
01:58rowing and then that was my first introduction in the Combined Cadet Force, CCF, in the Navy
02:08section into the shooting and that was rimfire .22 calibre and that was shooting for the
02:17school and also at county level.
02:21And my claim to fame was obviously there at shooting eventually for Country Life magazine
02:27at Bisley.
02:28Tell me a bit more about that.
02:31How did that come about?
02:34That was really something talent spotters come around to the various different schools.
02:39The school I was at was Canford but we had neighbouring schools like Sherbourne, Downside,
02:44The Oval, that was like into public school competitions.
02:51It transpired at that early stage that I had a pretty good eye and managed to then end
02:57up being captain of the school shooting team for two years consecutively and representing
03:02Canford School at Bisley.
03:04Which we...
03:05Yeah, definitely.
03:06So I was going to say there's so many different types of shooting.
03:09What was it back then?
03:10Was it sort of target shooting as you are now?
03:12Was it disc shooting?
03:13Yes, that was target shooting.
03:18And then we had, I mean the Country Life discipline was where you have a spotter so you actually
03:25don't actually see the target.
03:27It's more like a landscape of a village and your spotter will identify your target and
03:33then give you instructions to follow the backdrop over gates, over the trees, over
03:43the rooftops and into a little small alleyway and he will then actually direct you to the
03:47actual target.
03:48So you don't actually see what you're actually looking at, you're reliable.
03:53And that I gather is very much now a military, it's adopted by the military where they actually
04:00have a spotter and a shooter.
04:02I mean it's interesting because I know you said you played a lot of rugby and hockey
04:05and these sort of team sports but then you found that there was some sort of connection
04:10with shooting.
04:11What do you think it was?
04:12Because they're two completely different sports, completely different approaches.
04:15Yes, I mean obviously with regards to the rugby side of things and the hockey and the
04:21cricket and rowing, you are very much of a team member and the sport is won or lost on
04:28the contribution and everybody pulling together as a team.
04:32The shooting side of things is very much a specific individual.
04:36And I don't know if you remember from my last interview, my biggest competitor out there
04:45on the range is in fact myself.
04:47So yeah, it's always a strive to sort of like push and push myself.
04:52But I've always been in with that same frame of mind of pushing myself when virtually getting
04:59up to FIS ski instructor, which I did take in the end because I fulfilled my dreams as
05:09becoming a PADI scuba diving instructor trainer.
05:13So I actually then trained instructors to instruct their students.
05:18And likewise with the motorcycling, I mean these are all things which I took up at an
05:23early age when I was able to ride a motorcycle and then became an ACU, RACACU, Advanced Motorcycle Instructor.
05:30And I mean Bill, it sounds like you've done it all.
05:32You've done all the different types of sports and talk to me a bit about that scuba diving
05:36then because it's a different type of sport.
05:40Tell me about how you got into it and what was the usual kind of grind with it?
05:45I think my early years, I was born and brought up in Malaysia.
05:48My father was a rubber planter and obviously in the hobby side of things, the weekends.
05:54He joined a local diving club, which is a British sub aqua club.
05:59And I have photographs of me underwater with my sister back in 71.
06:07So at a very, very early age, I was breathing, had adopted the gills to breathe underwater.
06:15Then obviously education took hold and I didn't really go back in the water until something
06:21like when I retired out of the police, I came in and started to join a local diving club.
06:28Went through the ranks, a water diver advanced and did my dive master internship and then
06:37eventually my instructorship in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and then followed that up with
06:45becoming a staff instructor.
06:48Travelled the world, seen some wonderful places, dived some very, very nice sites and those
06:56are potentially memories which I will treasure for the rest of my life.
07:01Tell me about it then because obviously we've got to move on to your accident.
07:06So talking about 2018, you were on holiday with your family.
07:10Take us through what happened before we move on to obviously when you re-fell in love with shooting.
07:16Yeah, I mean it was one of those looking forward to a week out, taking my mother out to Holland,
07:24to Amsterdam.
07:25She had this urge to go and see one of her bucket listings, to go and see the Tulip Festival.
07:31So I said, I'll accompany her and be a chaperone around for the Amsterdam trip.
07:40Unfortunately, in the blink of an eye, an accident happened.
07:44I was going back to the room to get my camera, the coach was waiting outside and we were
07:52on the fifth floor, a converted building which was previously the headquarters of the East
07:57India Trading Company.
07:59So the lift system was very primitive in that it was a lift about the size of a medium-sized
08:08bathroom I guess.
08:10It did beg the question when you went in and you saw two chairs and an armchair and a coffee
08:14table and books and newspapers and you're thinking, how long am I going to be in the lift?
08:20Well, it took about one minute to do one floor.
08:25So we were on the fifth floor, five minutes.
08:27I'm thinking, coach is outside, got to get the camera.
08:30So I used the stairs and was on the penultimate step where I just caught the wealth of my
08:38boots in the carpet, no one at fault.
08:44Just one of those things, went to try and go forward and came down, 28 steps.
08:50And I literally then realised I'd broken my body.
08:54I sustained a fracture to two of my vertebrae.
08:58I knew then when I was lying at the bottom of the stairs, the 28th marble step, that
09:04I couldn't move my legs and I thought, really, this is something serious.
09:10The rest of it was a bit of a blur.
09:15The Medicare air ambulance arrived.
09:19I was then transported to University Hospital in Amsterdam for surgery and three weeks later
09:27I was able to be sort of repatched back to up to Chalmers Wells for a 10 week, I guess
09:36a waiting list really, before I was admitted into Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury for my
09:43rehab process, which was about four months.
09:45How did that feel, being told that you were going to be forced to use a wheelchair?
09:51It was a big hit.
09:52I mean, don't get me wrong, it had a great impact.
09:56I mean, I lived outside.
09:58I was in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops, either in and out of the water or in a full
10:03set of racing leathers on my motorcycle.
10:06Ski gear, skiing down some slope in Switzerland.
10:11It had a fair, fair impact and to be honest, it took nearly five years for me not to get
10:24over it, but to accept that this will be how I would be for the rest of my life and then
10:31stop licking my wounds and just get on and do it.
10:34I think that's really what was in the early days when I was at Stoke Mandeville and I
10:39discovered, because it was the Olympic Stadium, they had other facilities, I tried wheelchair
10:43rugby, mental, nothing like normal rugby, so I gave that a pass, volleyball, table tennis
10:52and then obviously they had the shooting range at Stoke Mandeville and this was something
10:57quite, it was a long waiting list and I was fortunate to have two opportunities to shoot
11:05at the international range there, whereas the secretary there, Damien Hinchcliffe, he
11:13basically said that, I think you've got a good eye, you should really take this up.
11:19So I took his advice, joined a local club, bought myself a gun, rifle, two, and practiced
11:25away, joined the disability shooting club, Great Britain, at Stoke Mandeville.
11:31I guess the rest is history from there.
11:34Bill, we're going to take a very quick break now, but when we come back I want to talk
11:37about that falling in love with shooting all over again and what it's like now, the fact
11:43that you're once again going around the world competing in sport.
12:03Hello and welcome back to Invicta Sport right here on KMTV.
12:12Today we're speaking with wheelchair shooter Bill Wilson from Maidstone about how his life
12:16changed after finding his sport.
12:19Here's part two of our chat with him.
12:20OK, so Bill, you were telling us that you were taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital and
12:25it was there where you tried out shooting after trying a few different sports.
12:29Tell us what that process was like and eventually why you ended up choosing shooting.
12:34Yeah, I mean, we played wheelchair rugby every day, volleyball, table tennis, various different
12:45sports.
12:46We had the Olympic circuit there, you went on the bicycles, so you pedalled with your
12:50arms.
12:51I'm thinking, bear in mind, this was about half a mile away from the main hospital, the
12:56actual stadium.
12:58The shooting range really was on route, so I was just out of curiosity, thought I'll
13:03have a go.
13:04It was right next door to the weightlifting gym and generally, within a four-month rehab
13:11period, three to four months, you only get an opportunity to try the shooting once.
13:17It's that popular amongst obviously the resident competitors there who are part of the disability
13:25shooting Great Britain Club.
13:29I was fortunate, I had two opportunities to shoot and the secretary there, Damon Hinchcliffe,
13:34basically spotted me, thought I had a good idea, advised me to, upon discharge, to join
13:42a local shooting club, which I did down in Cranbrook at Tubbs Lake Shooting Club, purchased
13:48my own rifle, then another rifle.
13:50I shoot at two disciplines, 10m and 25 yards, and also joined the disability shooting club
13:58at Stoke Mandeville, and was then, I guess I was then spotted by, coached by the national
14:09disability shooting coach, Great Britain, Bob Thornby, who saw I popped up on his radar
14:18and he honed in and developed me ever since.
14:22To this day, he is my main coach, along with Steve Flack.
14:28After my success two years ago at the Hampshire Open, I was invited to join the South East
14:37Regional Rifle Squad, based at Bisley, and then started entering competitions.
14:44It sounds like you warmed to it so quickly, I know you'd had experience shooting before,
14:49but you also said about how much of an individual you are when it comes to sport, so how was
14:53that transition from your previous experience with sport to then doing shooting, but doing
15:02wheelchair shooting, where you have to have that additional support and you have to be
15:06relying on people to help you?
15:09Yeah, I mean, with regards to prior sports, prior to my accident, you are, you know, I
15:17played number eight, wing forward in rugby, you are part of, you know, you're one man
15:23out of a team of 15.
15:26The same goes with the cricket and the athletics.
15:29I mean, the athletics, very similar to the shooting, the fact that it's actually an individual
15:35sport.
15:36So I could relate very much to that, because it's me out there in the field, on the range,
15:43and I basically just get totally focused in the zone.
15:47And I do have a very religious training schedule.
15:52My coach basically said that anybody can shoot, bigger rifle shoot, but those who shoot well
15:59put in the practice.
16:00And that's what I do.
16:01So obviously, I comply.
16:04I'm probably classified as a more mature shooter.
16:10So but I listen and learn and comply.
16:14But yes, the transition I didn't find too bad.
16:19I finally focused and found something which, as an individual, I can just crack on with
16:24and dividends are paid off and I could see results from it.
16:30And now, as we say, you're flying around the world and competing in sport and competing
16:35in shooting.
16:36And Bill, one thing I think people absolutely love to hear about is your shooting range
16:41that you've built in your house, in your kitchen.
16:44Tell us how that came about.
16:45Well, I was fortunate enough to have a house, which is as a result of the extension conservatory.
16:57The key thing is really having the range in this discipline is 10 meters.
17:02There are competitors in Team GB which have had their bathrooms adapted, holes put through
17:11a tubing section to connect in with their shed or into their garage.
17:18One of the biggest issues about competitive shooting is that access to ranges to shoot
17:23on a regular basis is quite restricted.
17:28Distance traveled, I mean, for me to go to Aldersley, you know, we're looking at four
17:32hours.
17:33Bisley is good.
17:34I meet up four or five times a year at the Southeast Regional Rifle Squad.
17:40I get to Stoke Mandeville with the Disability Shooting Club GB once a month.
17:47But I'm fortunate because I've invested and put a shooting range in my house.
17:54I shoot from the lounge, well actually just outside the lounge in the hallway, through
17:59the kitchen door and into the conservatory, thus ensuring that nobody's in the rooms at
18:06the time.
18:09It's full-time set up.
18:11My training schedule is Tuesdays and Thursdays where I'll shoot a 60-match competition.
18:19Fortunate that I have that and I can pick the rifle up and just shoot when I want to.
18:23Absolutely.
18:24It's kind of taking working from home to a whole new level.
18:27But I think what people, and we'll show some pictures up on the screen now, I've had the
18:30pleasure of coming down and actually seeing your shooting range.
18:33I think when people hear it, they kind of think, oh, but what if you miss?
18:36What if you hit something along the way?
18:41You never miss, for one thing, but we're talking about the smallest of margins, aren't we,
18:45when it comes to target shooting?
18:48We are, yes.
18:49I mean, looking at, you know, if I was to put it in perspective, an adjustment on my
18:58elevation horizontals and left and right on the sights is a 0.2 of a millimetre adjustment
19:08at the end of the target.
19:10So one-click adjustments, 0.2 on the target.
19:15It is microscope-type adjustments.
19:19And you've really got to, I mean, tell me about that moment when you're about to shoot
19:21as well.
19:22People really, I really didn't realise this until I'd actually seen you in action.
19:25You have to really control your breathing to the point where you're shooting in between
19:29heartbeats.
19:30That's right, yes.
19:32I mean, we train to basically regulate our heartbeat to coincide with what is called
19:38the respiratory pause.
19:41You and I, we all do it.
19:42We actually breathe in, we breathe out.
19:45We don't do it, we do it subconsciously, we don't even think about it.
19:49Just before we breathe in, there is a secondary pause and that is called the respiratory pause.
19:56We then have to try and tie that in when our heart is not beating.
20:00So our body is absolutely almost flat-lined just for that moment.
20:05And that's when we take, squeeze the trigger, take the shot.
20:08It is incredible.
20:09Okay, talk to me about what it's like, we're week in, week out there.
20:13I know you've got the new season starting soon with the shooting, so where are you going
20:17to be and what is that kind of week-on-week like?
20:20I mean, surely you've got to have sponsors behind you to help pay for the routes.
20:24Well, to date, it's been all self-funded.
20:27I mean, the previous perspective, a weekend shoot would be, particularly with Stay Away,
20:33we're coming up to the Norfolk, South Norfolk shoot, then we've got down to Hampshire, which
20:40will be an overnight.
20:41You're probably looking at a couple of hundred pounds, 250, 300 pounds for a domestic shooting
20:46competition.
20:47That includes competition fees, assistance, hotels, so on and so forth, fuel.
20:53Take that up to the next level, when I go to Gibraltar at the end of May, we're probably
20:58looking at about two to three grand.
21:02Likewise, when I go to Hanover or to Stockholm, and then looking far afield to hopefully international
21:12Longhaw, if I'm then looking at Cairo, Doha, Jakarta, anything up to 6,000, flights, hotels,
21:24food.
21:25So, yeah.
21:26So, that's where I am at this stage, looking at sponsorship requirements, and I do have
21:33a few irons in the fire with regards to sponsorship, and I'm one of them being a major German motor
21:41car manufacturer, and I've had, in essence, an agreement from a singer-songwriter and
21:53son of the late Robin Gibb, so taking an interest, obviously, in the shooting side
22:01of things.
22:02So, I'm not looking at several different sponsorships, so I'm looking at trying to narrow it down
22:10so I can give those individual sponsors the full benefit when I'm out there in the field.
22:16And it is an incredible story as well, so why shouldn't you be supported?
22:20No, absolutely.
22:21Absolutely.
22:22Bill, thank you very much for joining us today.
22:24One question which we are asking all of our guests on these sort of longer interview programmes
22:29is, if you could speak with your younger self now, what would be your message to yourself?
22:34I should have done this a lot sooner.
22:39Fantastic.
22:40And, absolutely, I mean, would you have done it sooner if you'd have started again?
22:46I probably, I mean, had it not been for my accident, I probably wouldn't even look, you
22:51know, twice at the rifle and take it up.
22:53But it's given me, you know, that door closed and, you know, several other, you know, windows
22:59open.
23:00It's just, it's given me a new leash of life, and as I say, I wish I'd taken it up and kept
23:08it going from school days, because who knows where that could have taken me.
23:12But I'm content with where I am now, I'm enjoying it, and I guess you would say I'm doing quite
23:20well at it as well.
23:21And I'm sure you've got a very big future ahead, winning competitions, as you are at
23:24the moment.
23:25So we'll be right there behind you to follow your journey.
23:28Bill, thank you very much for joining us today.
23:29Thank you very much for having me on the show.
23:32That's it from us on today's episode of Invicta Sport.
23:36Don't forget, there's plenty more sports news, interviews and features from right across
23:39the county over on our website, kmtv.co.uk.
23:43Just click on the sports tab and there's plenty for you to watch.
23:46That's it from us.
23:47Good night.