A fearless frail pensioner is refusing to give in to old age after sharing a hilarious video of himself plunging down a water slide at a popular holiday spot.
Daredevil Bob Carter, a retired sales representative from Sleaford, Lincolnshire, was keen to prove that life doesn’t have to slow down after retirement.
So he entered and won a competition hosted by TUI UK, bagging himself the title of ‘First Time Senior Slider’, with his prize a trip to Turkey to have the experience of a lifetime at their Ali Bey Club Splashworld resort – including jetting down a huge, winding slide on an inflatable ring.
He took his granddaughter Lois, aged nine, daughter Jane, 41, son-in-law Toby, 49, and Toby’s aunt Natalie, 55 with him on the trip and was selected from hundreds of thrill-seeking over 60s entries after sharing his story.
Describing his thrilling ride down the huge winding slide he explained: “I was a bit nervous beforehand as I’ve never done anything like that before.
“I wanted to show people that age doesn’t matter and that even if you are as old as me, you can still do things like this. I also wanted to show my granddaughter Lois that I could do it and make her proud of me.”
The video shows the granddad about to hit the slide before whizzing down and after many twists and turns, he emerges from the water with a smile from ear-to-ear, saying: “I enjoyed that!”
The keen traveller and crossword fanatic later added: “The closest thing I have done to that was a helterskelter I went on years ago, but that was nothing like the waterslide.
“When my daughter told me she had put my name forward for the First Time Senior Slider competition I thought maybe she was trying to get rid of me! But it was fun. I might go on it again tomorrow now!”
Granddaughter Lois admitted at first she almost had to cover her eyes as her near octogenarian granddad heading off down the water run.
But she added: “Seeing granddad come out of the tunnel into the water was really funny. He was brilliant. He did look a bit nervous beforehand, but I’m really happy he went ahead with it.”
www.tui.co.uk launched the competition to celebrate the centenary of the waterslide, a treasured element of family sunshine breaks.
In conjunction with the competition, TUI UK also carried out research to discover why very few over 60’s brave the waterslide.
The poll revealed one quarter (25 per cent) of 1,000 ‘senior’ Brits have never been down a waterslide, despite almost nine in ten (88 per cent) over 60’s feeling ‘young at heart’.
Richard Sofer, commercial director at TUI UK&I, said: “Seeing Bob’s smile as he went down our Splashworld waterslide is what it’s all about for us here at TUI.
“We were thrilled to make Bob our official First Time Senior Slider and give him, and his family, a wonderful memory to talk about for years to come.
“The moral of the story is you are never ‘too old’ to give something a go.”
