Little 'Wag'

"I tell Arnold of that first time I saw him in 1969. We recall competitors and other bodybuilding figures of those days. We talk about Oscar Heidenstam, NABBA president, who died in 1991, and of Wag Bennett, gym owner and promoter of that period, at whose home Arnold often stayed when he was in London.

"Have you ever been to Wag's gym?" he asks. I reply I had, many times; even stopped overnight on a couple of occasions. Wag's gym is set in an old church and dotted about the place are life-size cutouts of bodybuilding stars of the time, such as Reg Park, Rick Wayne, Franco Columbu and, of course, Arnold. I remind my lunch companion that attached to the end of Wag's kitchen table is a cutout of him (Arnold), giving the impression in pictures that he's sitting there waiting for nourishment. He laughs and gently taps the table with the palm of his hand.

He suddenly leans forward and, with his eyes half closed, haltingly utters, "Heathrow Central to Paddington ... at Paddington, change lines to Liverpool Street ... Liverpool Street to Forest Gate. Get off at Forest Gate and walk to ... 335 Romford Road." He beams. He'd just reached back in his memory banks and plucked out the London Underground route from Heathrow to Wag's gym that he hadn't taken in more than 30 years."

Quote from www.findarticles.com

" lets make it clear! arnold schwarzaneger lived in Forest Gate with Wag Bennett. not Ilford, my neighbour Bill Norris was friendly with Wag and my ex used to train with Wag in Forest Gate i also have a book signed by Dianne Bennett Wag's Wife and i have seen pictures of them together. Also get it straight Itchicoo Park is Little Ilford Park in Manor Park E12, my neighbour used to date the famouse 'small face'Steve Marriot. (she said he was a little sh*t though!). i am fed up with people naming other parks as Itchicoo Park it Little Ilford... I have lived i Manor Park all my life and my dad was born in E12 so i know what i am talking about. "

Quote from www.knowhere.co.uk

Before Butler and Gaines had laid eyes on him, Arnold had gone from Austria to Germany then to England. He came to London for the Nabba (National Amateur Bodybuilders' Association) Mr Universe show in September 1966, a baby-faced giant. In the front row of the Victoria Palace sat one of the world's richest men, J. Paul Getty, a bodybuilding aficionado, and also Jimmy Savile, a former wrestler who was becoming a famous disc jockey. Chet Yorton was placed first by seven of the nine judges. The other two, including Wag Bennett, who was married to Dianne Bennett, who owned gyms and ran bodybuilding competitions, gave first place to Arnold. He had electrified the crowd.

'And afterwards,' said Dianne, when I met her recently, 'he looked so forlorn, so we went up to him and he could see by the score sheets that Wag had put him first. And he looked very lost, so we invited him back to our home. And of course we had gyms and we had six kids so he knew we were a family who trained. He came back and stayed with us and trained with us, and I fed him.

'He was only a lad working at a gym in Munich and he didn't have any money or anything, so we would arrange a few times a year for him to come over and do a series of shows and earn some money. He'd start in London and he'd have to do a couple of shows for Wag and me, for which he got paid 10 quid and for which he'd help get the hall ready, put chairs out. Then the first stop would be down here in Portsmouth for my mum and dad, on the pier or at the Wedgwood Rooms, and then he'd go on to Plymouth where another friend, Bill Jackson, had a gym. Then Wag would take him on a tour to earn money for food, and that's how it started.

'When he stayed with us, not only did he learn quite a lot from me about food, I also taught him English. I used to help him with his clothes, too ... he was a bit of a hick dresser. And then he trained. He used to say he could only get a decent pump when he was in Wag's gym. Until the time he came to us, Arnold had never used music to pose to on stage. We said to him, "You've got to use music and you've got to learn to pose to music." "No no," he said. But we won him over. He learned to pose in our front room.'

Dianne gave me a tour of the gym, where she kept some of the equipment that Arnold had trained with. There was a set of old scales that he once used. Sometimes he'd say to Wag or Dianne: 'I'm not going to bed tonight until I weigh 230lb,' and he might be two or three pounds off so he would eat and eat until he weighed what he thought he should. Dianne showed me the machine that he had used for 1,000lb calf raises. His calves had been the body part that gave him the most trouble. Wag had told him to cut the bottoms out of his training pants so that he could see them at all times, to remind him he must work harder on them. Dianne said that she'd never seen anyone train as hard as Arnold did.

Arnold went to live in America in 1968, but he never lost touch with Dianne and Wag, or with the people who had helped him in Germany and Austria. Dianne said that they would all meet every year at the Arnold Classic, where she often judged. Arnold would stop in when he came to Europe, too, and he would call and chat about his life. She and Wag had watched his inexorable ascent and it had come as no surprise. He had even had the master plan at 19 years old when he could barely articulate it in English. 'He used to sit at the table and say, "I'm gonna be the biggest. I'm gonna be the best. I'm gonna be a film star ..."'

Quote from www.arnoldexposed.com

Dave later became European Editor of the Weider muscle magazines and just like WAG BENNETT who produced a great bodybuilding magazine called “PEAK,” (when incidentally, I was first invited to become a bodybuilding magazine writer along with “Schwartzie” Arnie)

Quote from www.juniormuscle.com

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