History
Background
Colin was born in Bath, Somerset, and remembers moving to Roeshott Park in Highcliffe, Christchurch, Dorset at age 3. Just after this, he also recalls Dad teaching him the hard way how to ride a bike (there’s a story there!), playing with Russell Savage from the local care home, playing in the woods with Jan Daines, and by age nine, bro Steve helping to teach Colin table tennis, where he became England No. 2 in the tender age group of Under 11’s.
Nicky Dines was No. 1. Colin watched Dad for many hours at a time playing football, then refereeing, and playing cricket for Grange Sports and Social Club, which Dad ran. Dad’s broken nose came in the slips off a thick edge! I loved the fact the cricket pitch had a large oak tree in the middle of it well before the boundary.
Holidays were often spent with Grandma and Grandad, and seeing Grandpop – in working-class Sheffield.
More Acknowledgements…
- Great friends and girlfriends – for which he is very grateful, and humbled by.
- Table Tennis Coaches, Peers and Administrators: Sport can offer so much to people, especially young minds and bodies. Colin was a beneficiary from thousands of volunteers and professionals across the sport in so many capacities over decades. Great friendships and admiration for them continue to this day. See the Table Tennis page for more about these, and Colin’s life and times in the sport.
- Coaching and Consulting – In adult times and from an early age Colin has been so fortunate to benefit from many hundreds of coaching and consulting role models and colleagues, in many organisations, and in self-employed or consulting roles. These have been both in sport (fantastic world-class mentors with backgrounds from hot-air ballooning to canoe slalom and across 20+ Olympic, Paralympic and non-Olympic sports), and in business and non-profit organisations. Many have been recognised internationally and have contributed enormously to modern thinking on psychology, dynamics, analysis, human and business performance, leadership, trauma recovery, systemic coaching etc.
Colin thanks them all and struggles continually to honour their great spirits and legacies.
School
Mr Chacksfield (Head) and Miss Dennis (Year 6 and Music) and other teachers were great at Highcliffe Junior School, and then Mr Nicholl et al at Highcliffe Comprehensive. Miss Dennis helped Colin to play recorder by ear to any tune, after hearing it just once. A skill many have regretted asking for a rendition of in later days!
Colin was in the primary school choir that finished third in the Llangollen Eisteddfod. He loved the coach trips there and back, and remembers failing badly at chatting up the girls in the back, aged 9! Colin also sang competitive solos (no-one to chat up there) until his voice broke (down). The voice wasn’t bad but he never won a solo competition. The one he might have won, the pianist who kindly accompanied the examiner on the day made a mistake in the middle and Colin stumbled to pull the duo back together. Sadly the examiner wrote up that Colin had stumbled, missing the obvious point of why. Identifying the source and cost of ‘misattribution’ has been a key interest of Colin’s ever since!
"I love seeing great teaching...
Teaching can have a huge impact on a young person’s positive attitudes and the velocity of their personal and professional development. Overall I was very lucky, but I have also seen the negative impact of poor teaching. One tiny written example; I got this PE Report Card from school when I was 15:
“ Christopher is a well-coordinated boy who does well in most sports he attempts.”
Hilarious! As well as getting my name wrong after two years, the PE master seemed blind to my table tennis achievements (playing for England for my age regularly). Within a year of this, I won two Men’s Commonwealth Silver medals. After I did, my PE teacher still never mentioned it.
While this did not affect me adversely, imagine how similar indifference could affect someone more vulnerable, and especially if repeated or endemic, or widespread among a teaching community.
We have to teach young people well, and we can do better than this! Luckily I have also seen much wonderful teaching and coaching in action, and it always warms my heart to see great teachers at work, helping young people to achieve intelligence, self-reliance, capability, independence, and responsibility for self and others. We have a vested interest. Kids are the future and our future leaders in our old age!
TT Coaches, Peers and Administrators
Thanks to John Luther for coaching Colin at table tennis at Winton YMCA (Dad was by now an Assistant Coach, and went on to become a full coach); everyone at Merton TTC in Bournemouth, especially Chris Fugatt and Trevor Parry, and great older peers and role models like Trevor Smith, Joyce Coop and many, many others.
At 12 years of age, Merton TTC was the place where Colin first saw someone die in public – an older player had a heart attack on court while playing right in front of him. It’s not a nice topic but in table tennis it’s actually not that uncommon as a way to finish your playing career at an old age. Table Tennis can be played into old age. It’s true and Colin is glad that it can. Trevor Parry (hospital worker) and Colin’s Dad tried to resuscitate the chap, but on arrival, the ambulance crew said he’d already died immediately. Like many events of life, it’s one of those experiences you just log, and you don’t forget. University astronomy student John Taylor and Colin were ushered up to the Snooker Room upstairs while this went on. It was the only time they got a free game of snooker.
Mike Greatorex took Colin and the Hampshire teams including Janet New, Julie Reading, John Payne and Richard Bergmann all over the South of England in his car for County Junior matches. Colin is so thankful. He won the Hampshire Under 17 Champs at age 12, beating John P in the final in what was then called a mental institution. It was an interesting bunch of spectators for a young boy to see, and a great education and leveller of an experience. John Jaques sponsored Colin from age 13 with kit and cash for competition expenses – always very grateful for their help.
at English Junior International Open
and walk back round to do it again! Colin performs the ‘extended touch-and-go’, skimming the basket base along the lake (without sinking it, hopefully!)
About to leave the factory, 10.02.1989.
Little Secret G-BORE.
Hot Air Ballooning
In 1987 great friends invited Colin to a hot-air balloon event. Colin wasn’t too sure about heights, and so accepted on condition no one would try to embarrass him into actually getting into a basket. On the lawn inside the moat at Leeds Castle, Kent (as you do!) Colin watched the early dusk gradually capture the view, until the propane burner lit up the inside of the envelope of the balloon and beyond. It was magnificent, and, tethered to three vintage Bentleys, the balloon and basket rose about 12m into the air, four people inside enjoying the new view. “How do I get a go in there?!” Colin asked! Five minutes later Colin was floating above the lawn with an amazing dusky view, and was hooked.
Jimmy, Pat, Carol, Chris, Robin and many others helped me to pass my pilot’s licence by the next year. The next several years were littered with amazing experiences in wonderful places around Europe. In December 1992 we crossed the English Channel to France for Pudsey Bear and friends; with 40 teddy-bears tied on for a sponsored ride. And the ‘scared of heights’ part? Well the beauty and exhilaration and nature provided a wonderful antidote and motivation to exceed the fear, and in any case, I found the ‘give’ of the basket very holding – it’s a wonderful container both physically and psychologically. No sense of thrust – just ‘float’, and the basket feels like it’s just hanging from something soft, secure and strong – which it is!
Family
Colin married Lynn in 2023 – both having had previous marriages and children.
Colin met American citizen Kim Crouse in 1995 (on a plane flight to work in New Zealand!) and they married in June 1998, settling in England.
Adam was born in September 1999 and Sam in March 2001. Many challenges beset their early years. Colin and Kim studied over several years under one of the world’s foremost private child brain development clinics in Philadelphia, USA. They were able to move a number of child developmental markers significantly – do ask if you’d like more information.
The learning they gained was key and unique. Colin’s coaching today still benefits from the specialist knowledge and educational techniques he learned then.
“Time performs no development in and of itself – the development of the human brain and body is a function of use; of organised stimulation. By creating an optimal individualised specific programme of intellectual, physical, emotional and civil stimulation and recovery between parent and child, a brain-injured child’s development can often be significantly accelerated to achieve much better life outcomes. And by the same token a well child’s development can be similarly accelerated across a number of fields”. Colin Wilson
If you have a question or would like to talk about anything related to the above that affects you or strikes a chord with you, please feel free to contact us.
Photo Gallery
Click a photo to open the photo gallery and read more about each picture
Photo acknowledgement: Michael Loveder and Chris Rayner for some of these superb Table Tennis photographs.