For some who attend, the sessions have become about far more than boxing.<\/p>\n
Mike Smith, 78, served in Northern Ireland and Yemen. After leaving the Army, he said there was something missing from his life.<\/p>\n
Smith, who has lost his hearing and has Parkinson’s disease, said the classes had made a huge difference.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Ian,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Coming in and just having a chat, having some banter about the old days. It is not like going back but it just gives you something to look at.”<\/p>\n
He said the group had given him purpose at a time when many people his age were slowing down.<\/p>\n
“I could be like every older person, sitting back watching Coronation Street, [drinking a] pint of beer, but no, I am the top of my tree,” he said.<\/p>\n
“My mum’s gone, my dad’s gone, all my brothers and sisters have gone, and here I am.<\/p>\n
“What gives me that reason for wanting to live and carry on? People like Ian, people like these events that we have here in Shropshire.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For some who attend, the sessions have become about far more than boxing. Mike Smith, 78, served in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}