Ninja Nanna

Joan Wood looks like any other grandma as she potters around in her garden and whips up cakes in the kitchen. But don’t be fooled. This granny is a lean, mean fighting machine. After taking up karate seven years ago to “try something different”, Joan, 78, has just been awarded her black belt – the ultimate level in the martial art. “It was a huge thrill,” she says.

Joan has certainly put her skills to good use. Last year, as she strolled through the spice markets of Marrakesh in Morocco while on holiday, she noticed she was being followed.

“I was walking with a friend, when I felt this thief grappling for my bag,” she recalls. “I didn’t know if he was armed or was part of a gang, but I quickly turned, fronting him in a fighting pose. He just looked at me in horror, threw his hands up in the air and bolted into the crowd!”

Four months later, back in her home town of Nambour in Queensland, Joan returned home from a karate lesson to see two thugs hanging around her house. She believes they were waiting to mug her. They didn’t stay long. “I got out of my car wearing my karate uniform, and they fled,” says the retired doctor of computer science. “I think they thought I’d be an easy target.”

Joan is the oldest woman in Australia to achieve black-belt status and she’s the oldest in her class by several decades.