Roller hockey in Baston layby on A15 to Bourne has made Hockey Man UK a hit on Facebook and TikTok
The sight of a man playing roller hockey in a layby has likely caused plenty of double-takes from motorists over the years as they drive up and down the A15.
And probably just as many questions - first among them, why?
For Paul Hinson - also known as Hockey Man UK - the answer to that is simple enough.
“I’m happy up here. This is stress relief - it’s how I relax.
“And I’ve never been run over yet!”
For the best part of the last 30 years, Paul has set up a goal, tipped out his bag of training pucks and skated up and down the layby, sharpening his shooting skills.
In the summer he visits for a few hours, five or six days each week, ever mindful of the buses which use the layby as a stop. He knows the timetable well.
Paul’s audience is not limited to commuters and day trippers motoring through his home village of Baston.
After prompting, he began to live stream his exercise routine on local Facebook pages and was quickly surprised to find there was an appetite for it.
His best-performing video on the social media platform is 17,000 views. So far.
“Friends kept asking me to post videos - I think they were waiting to see me fall over,” he said.
“The first time I put a stream on Facebook I was rolling around laughing at myself.
“I have a lot more people who come to me and say ‘hi Paul’ now.”
Paul has expanded his audience even further thanks to TikTok.
Last month one such video clip went viral and within three days it had notched up an incredible 45,000 views.
“It’s amazing,” said Paul.
“Throughout lockdown I did a live stream on Saturdays and I was told it was the highlight of the week for some.”
Recently a passer-by posted a video of Paul’s hockey on the Facebook page of the Dull Men’s Club, an attempt, he believes, to poke fun.
But it had soon accrued 1,500 likes and plenty of supportive messages.
“I get the odd negative comment, but I take the mickey out of myself,” Paul added.
While it has intrigued and cheered up the daily grind for some, the skating routine has a serious side.
“If I hadn’t started this 30 years ago, I would be dead,” he admitted.
“I got up to 24 stone and had become a recluse - a big leap from having DJ’d five nights a week and been the life and soul.”
The reason for the dramatic change in personality was sparked by severe mental health problems in his early 20s.
“In 1993 I had a serious nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia,” he recalled.
“My diagnosis was changed to depression in 1996, and then to bipolar in 2000.”
While Paul doesn’t believe his latest diagnosis is correct, he was sectioned twice and decided to leave Peterborough and move back to Baston after his second spell in hospital.
The powers that sport and physical activities to improve mental health are well known now and routinely prescribed, but Paul was a disciple long before.
A life-long skater - his parents met on skates - when things got tough, he would go for a spin to combat his mental health challenges.
“I started to have twinges. I have dodgy knees, so I can’t run, and won’t go on a bike after being knocked off when I was a kid,” Paul explained.
“So at night I used to skate around the village.
“When I started playing hockey with a puck, it kept going in gardens, so I needed somewhere else.”
With the blessing of the local police, a layby off the A15 became his perfect ‘rink’.
“I have done it for 30 years on and off, and in May I’ll have been doing it for 11 years straight,” he said.
“I keep getting asked the question, ‘do you ever hit a car?’ and I say ‘no, I’m not aiming at the cars’.
“Apparently I’m fairly good at this.”
His dedication attracted attention of a notable passer-by who Paul believes was Jon Cotton, a former Peterborough Pirates ice hockey player and a British junior international.
“He pulled in here last March and said ‘I’ve got something for you’,” he recalled.
“He pulled out three shirts and said ‘these are for you’.
“He’d driven past and seen me several times so he put the shirts in the boot of his car for the next time he saw me.
“They’re priceless. Shirts go at £140 a time and this guy played for Great Britain in these.”
Britain has always seemed to be fond of its eccentrics and those who choose to follow their own path.
And Paul is proud to have made his own mark. After all, it would be a dull, dull world if we were all the same.
“Everybody should be different - everyone should be an individual,” he said.
“I’ve learned to live with it (mental health challenges).
“It’s been hard, but it took a long time to get used to being me, so why would I change now?”
