Mike Gardner
Books and Profile
Biographies
Willie - The Life and Times of Willie Horne, a Rugby League Legend
He was captain of Great Britain, England, Lancashire and Barrow. His style of play, like his style of captaincy, was courageous, decisive, inventive and inspiring.
Willie Horne, as survey after survey of rugby league fans has endorsed, was one of the sport's all-time greats - many would claim THE all-time great.
This is the Willie Horne story, an authorised biography with all the pace, wit and social commentary of a best-selling novel.
MIRACLES ON THE CAMINO
The uplifting true story of one man’s amazing pilgrimage to Santiago.
Mike says he witnessed four miracles, and enjoyed dozens of experiences that were either the result of mystic forces or coincidences that stretch the laws of statistics way, way beyond breaking point. He acquired two sons, three daughters, three sisters and brothers too numerous to put a figure on. His pilgrimage is the essence of everything that is so wonderful about this unique place - there is nowhere like it on Earth.
Profile
Mike was born in 1951. He is a retired journalist who lives in Spain.
He was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and worked as a compositor at the town’s newspaper, the North West Evening Mail, before being retrained as a reporter in 1987.
Mike eventually became the paper’s Features Editor before moving to Carlisle in 1995 to take up a position as Sports Editor of The Cumberland News.
He won a host of writing awards including the prestigious Whitbread Feature Writer of the Year in 1991 and was highly-commended in the Sports Writer of the year award organised by UK Press Gazette in 1995.
Mike is married to Lesley and they have two grown-up children, John, a chemistry teacher at Oxford and David, an IT manager at a large comprehensive school at Churchdown, close to Cheltenham. Mike and Lesley have a grand-daughter, Lily.
He spends his spare time cycling, playing golf and trying to improve his Spanish.