Games are now on the table

Mike Mansell, background, from the Men's Shed, and Bill Wareham try out a table top game. Photo / John Stone

Some of Whangarei's older residents will be able to get up to more fun and games thanks to the inventive mind of a former one-legged acrobat.

A still active Bill Wareham, aged 90, was concerned that some less mobile fellow residents at Radius Rimu Resthome were not stimulated or motivated to stay fit and others were missing out on activities because they couldn't leave their chairs.

So, Mr Wareham thought up some table top games - loosely based on the old-fashioned table top games he used to see played in British pubs - which people can play from wheelchairs or standing up. "The equipment is big, colourful and the games fit on a table, and it keeps people active," Mr Wareham said.

The games are variations on dice throwing, quoits, mini-mini golf, fish in a barrel and skittles, and involve throwing, pushing, batting and "big target" hand and eye co-ordination. Each requires a different, light weight board that sits on a specially made table.

Mr Wareham took drawings of his games to the Whangarei Men's Shed where members helped hone the ideas, made improvement suggestions and went about making the games that were launched at Rimu Park on Wednesday.

Whangarei Men's Shed chairman Mike Mansell said the group was happy to help.

"He asked us to construct them, we asked is it a project we can get behind, and it certainly was," Mr Mansell said.

"It's amazing. It's a great concept and plaudits must go to Bill."

Mr Wareham has given the group permission to carry on making the games, and Mr Mansell is taking the concept to Northland District Health Board and other facilities that might be interested in them.

Mr Wareham's a chap who doesn't let a disability hold him back. As a sporty teenager in Auckland he lost his right leg to polio but did not let that interfere with pushing himself physically. He became the famous one-legged acrobat, the Balancing Buccaneer in 1950s United Kingdom, later trained as a masseur, eventually started the Wareham's Massage School and founded the New Zealand Institute of Massage.

Now the 90-year old has cleared his room of the paints and gear he used to put the finishing touches to his games equipment, he's looking forward to getting back to training.

"Handstands," the former acrobat said. "I want to try to get back up on my hands."