End of an era as world famous bodybuilding show promoter set to retire after more than six decades in the business

Jim Charles, who has run Jim’s Gym for 67 years, has been the National Amateur Bodybuilder's Association (NABBA) show organiser for the Midlands as well as running Mr Britain and Mr Universe contests for getting on for 50 years. He's also been chairman for many years and honorary life president of the association which set a young Arnold Schwarzenegger on the road to bodybuilding success in the 1960s.

But after a lifetime of promoting fitness training and bodybuilding through the shows, NABBA and Jim’s Gym in Lye, Stourbridge, Jim has decided it’s time to ditch the heavy lifting and take things a bit easier.

His wife Val, who has been secretary of NABBA and co-organiser of the shows for 27 years, has also called it a day.

The couple have staged Midlands and Mr England shows at Brierley Hill Civic Hall for decades as well as the national Mr Britain and internationally renowned Mr Universe shows staged at various venues around the country.

In fact Jim remembers vividly the days when Schwarzenegger, then unknown, took the bodybuilding world by storm - winning the NABBA Mr Universe class 1 title four times in succession  from 1967 to 1970, before becoming a Hollywood movie star.

He also often fondly recalls how he bought the young Arnold breakfast comprising black coffee and beans on toast in London as the young Austrian arrived in the UK to make his name in competitive bodybuilding.

Arnie, the association’s biggest success story and role model, has been a mainstay on Jim’s musclemen show posters including the latest one advertising his final competition.

It will be mixed emotions for Jim, his wife and his friends and family as they host their final show at the Civic Hall this Sunday (September 7). But Jim, aged 86, acknowledges he’s had a good innings of more than six decades in the business.

He said: "In a sense I'm disappointed, it's like getting old - I'm disappointed, but you just have to accept these things. I've had to accept I'm old and I've found that difficult. I'm gonna miss it, but life goes on. We're going to go out with a bang."

Jim’s Gym in Chapel Street, also known as Lye Community Gym, will remain open, with Jim still in attendance every day.

Bodybuilding and training has been good to him; he may never have found his calling, however, if he had not suffered from acute rheumatism and rheumatic fever as a youngster.

The condition left him hospitalised for a long period in his youth, with three Christmases spent in Corbett Hospital, in Stourbridge. 

When he finally started to turn a corner, however, he began taking an interest in fitness as a way to recover and gain some strength.

In the early days he was using beer crates as benches and training in pub gardens and spare rooms at the homes of friends - gym culture hadn't quite caught on in the UK in the early 1950s - but Jim got the bug for training and never looked back.

Jim’s Gym was established in 1958, starting out in Wordsley where it was known as a physical culture club. It later moved to Lye where it has remained ever since - even surviving a fire in 2006.

Taking inspiration from Arnie, star of The Terminator films, Jim said at the time of the disaster “I’ll be back” and the gym rose from the ashes to continue for almost another 20 years.

Schwarzenegger, who has never forgotten his early success with NABBA, even sent Jim a congratulatory message in 2008 wishing his old bodybuilding comrade well as he marked 50 years in the industry and got back on track after the blaze, and the letter still hangs proudly on the wall in the gym.

Over the years the legendary Jim's Gym has welcomed big names in bodybuilding including Bill Pearl, John Brown and Edward Kawak. Former GB Olympic hockey player Sally Walton also enlisted Jim’s help and trained at the gym before going on to win a bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

And just last October Stourbridge electrician Nick Whitehouse won his category at the Brierley Hill Civic Hall show then went on to win the Mr Universe class 1 competition in November 2024 - the same title Arnie lifted all those years ago.

Although he’s bowing out of show organising, Jim will remain honorary life president of NABBA and will continue running the gym.

He’s also got gardening duties to take care of and five young grandsons, and at 86 he says he's grateful to be "still in the mix" and blessed with plenty of stories to dine out on that will keep his achievements and adventures in bodybuilding very much alive.