Martyn Wilson & Nancy Wilson

Nancy was born a twin on 9th January 1951 in Bridlington, East Yorkshire and spent her younger years in the village of Barmston, East Yorkshire attending Scarborough College and then Nottingham Polytechnic College as an Art Student.

Martyn was born on 23rd September 1960 in Leeds and lived for the first ten years in the village of Ulrome in East Yorkshire and then moved to Barmston were he met Nancy.

Nancy and Martyn married on the 19th April 1981 and for the first months of their marriage lived in Bridlington before moving to the Market Town of Driffield in East Yorkshire. During this time Nancy took up painting and exhibited her works in Kingston Upon Hull's Ferens Art Gallery and Leeds City Hall.

It was in 1985 that Nancy and Martyn Wilson opened their first gym in the East Yorkshire Town of Driffield and named it aptly 'Sweatshop'. Martyn had only recently taken up body building as a hobby and found that there were no facilities for training in their immediate area. While Martyn continued to work as a welder, Nancy ran the gym as well as looking after their young daughter Jade. Soon after opening Nancy decided to run aerobics classes and trained for her certificate in aerobics. The gym became so popular with locals and fitness conscious persons from the surrounding areas that Martyn had to give up his full time work to help with the running of the gym.

Both Nancy and Martyn studied for and achieved their certificate in bodybuilding instructing. Nancy as well as Martyn continued with bodybuilding and started to enter competitions. To their delight Martyn won the A.N.B. North East for 1986. Martyn's successes in competitions spurred on Nancy to also enter with the result that in 1988 she won her class in the Yorkshire Championships. From 1986 to 1993 Martyn and Nancy won over 16 competitions both in individual classes and as pairs winning the United Kingdom Couples in 1992 and finalist in the 1993 World Championships in Spain.

During this period Martyn and Nancy were featured in bodybuilding magazines:- British 'Muscle & Co', British 'Body Building Monthly', Russian 'Body Building', American 'Body Power' and American 'Female Body Building and Weight Training'. They were also invited to do guest appearances at numerous Championships where they were not competing and gave a demonstration of Pairs at the Expo Centre Earls Court London. Martyn won sponsorship from 'Allsports' and was featured in adverts for Littlewoods Pools (riding an elephant) and was in a film for Channel 4 called "The Final Frame". Nancy became an Area and then a Regional Aerobics Fitness Organiser for the A.O.G.B.

Martyn and Nancy retired from competition and concentrated on helping other would be body building competitors with great success. Nancy also continued with her aerobics classes and, when the 'step' craze hit Britain, Nancy was amongst the first to start classes. More and more Martyn and Nancy realised that their gym was too small to accommodate theirs and their members needs and started to look for an alternative. They left the Sweatshop gym in the hands of a manager and spent six months with their daughter Jade in France helping to set up and run a gym in an new tourist camp called "Zagarella" and more than ever wanted to expand their own gym. Click to see the ZAGARELLA site, excellent Holiday & Training facilities.

In 1994 the opportunity came for them to take over an abandoned, but not neglected, hotel nearer the center of their home town of Driffield. After hard work, in March 1995, they opened their new gym 'Valhalla Health and Fitness Centre' in the Viking shopping complex with over a hundred members already signed up. The Valhalla Health and Fitness Centre has not only a superior gym to the 'Sweatshop' but boasts a separate aerobics and kick boxing room, Fitness assessment room, Beauty therapist room, Steam room, Sauna and Jacuzzi plus the first gym in the area to install a Vertical Sunroom.

One month after the opening of the gym Martyn, Nancy and their daughter Jade and a friend of Jade's escaped in early hours of the morning with their lives when a chemist shop in the shopping complex below their Fitness Centre caught fire. The Centre and living quarters were all severely smoke damaged with parts of the floor dangerous. With help of family and friends Nancy and Martyn re-opened the Centre within eight weeks and within a year the Centre was one of the first to be awarded membership of the Guild of Master Craftsmen .

The Valhalla Health and Fitness Centre has gone from strength to strength and was listed in the 100 hottest centres in England by Ultra Fit magazine and achieved the best results in East Yorkshire for G.P. referral schemes. The Centre is also recognised as a centre for teaching Gym instructors and aerobics instructors to an internationally recognised certification.

Nancy and Martyn have travelled the world visiting places such as: America, Singapore, France, Australia, Spain, Yugoslavia and Denmark. Martyn is into American classic and British custom cars and motor bikes and has owned '78 Pontiac Trans-am an a Econolino Dayvan, Kawasaki Z1000 custom bike and at present owns a Le Baron convertible and a Capri 3.0s Custom Car. Nancy has now started to paint again and is currently working on a collection and will be looking to have her own web site displaying her works. Their daughter Jade has just completed a course in Performing Arts and is engaged to Matthew Gray whom she met at the Valhalla Health and Fitness Centre.