The Winshill Ninja

[Mighty_Emperor]

Paddy Considine knows the truth about the Winshill ninja. According to local legend, he was a trained fighter who came all the way from Japan, some time in the 1980s, expressly to dispense justice in Winshill, just outside Burton-upon-Trent, Considine's home town. The ninja went around beating up drug addicts in the park. The local press recently got wind of the story, and published a small article asking readers to call in if they remembered this exotic vigilante. "My sister was in the pub the other night, and everyone was asking who the Winshill ninja was," says Considine. "And somebody turned to her and said, 'I know who it is, and he's in here tonight, but I'm not saying.'"

Considine really does know who the ninja is - or rather isn't - because he invented him with his director and long-time friend Shane Meadows. He was an early idea for their next film, Considine explains, that had them in hysterics. It was inspired by a gang of teenagers he remembered from his youth who went through a fad of dressing like ninjas. Meadows mischievously elaborated the story, and several rounds of Chinese whispers later, a new urban myth had been created.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,,1310898,00.html

 

[Kondoru]

<Homo Aves looks guiltily at black clothing and martial arts paraphenalia stuffed under the bench>

Who `hasnt` gone though a phrase like that?

 

[lordmongrove]

The Modern Ninja That Terrorized Japan​

 

[Swifty]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,,1310898,00.html

I went to the Ada Chadwick complex of Burton on Trent in Winshill (since demolished I'm told) at the same time Shane Meadows was there. He was always playing pranks and making up stories, he was on a drama and screen writing course and I was studying art and photography, I made him up one day as an old man so he could pretend to fall over on a local bus years before JACKASS did the same thing.

There was a bloke who was pretty nasty in Burton at the time who I won't name here but he was the stuff of local legend because he was pimping out girls and was notorious after he cut one of his ex working girl's legs up with a knife in a local takeaway a year after she'd stopped being a prostitute for him. He was into his martial arts so that might be where they got the inspiration from.