John Ward’s crazy inventions began with a failed attempt to paddle across the Channel for charity on something made out of four bikes and four oil drums. A choppy sea put paid to that.
However, the madcap idea made page 3 of The Mirror, and led on to ever wackier projects. John accomplished these while working at everything from cinema projectionist to engineer in a shoe factory where the machinery was so old no spare parts existed so John made them in his own workshop.
The eccentric inventor tag stuck firmly in 1981 when John was invited on to the Pebble Mill at One TV show to talk about a Mini he had stretched – to 18 feet.
From then on his notoriety spread, the invitations to talk on American TV started arriving and he was even asked to launch the Ford Focus in 1998.
John says: “I did the full circle of interviews, I suppose, and there was an article in Reader’s Digest that sells 22m copies world wide in 47 languages.”
However, John would like to put the record straight as far as one interviewer is concerned. He was never ever interviewed by Noel Edmonds.