'I chose my passion, gravy wrestling, over a law career'

World champion wrestler Joel Hicks tells Maira Butt that his eccentric pursuits are worth the toll they’ve taken on him

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.