STRONGEST BOY

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 5

STRONGEST BOY

PEATS OF YOUNG HERCULES. Johnnie Mann, Britain’s strongest boy, who lives at Nine Mile Ride, was fourteen years old recently. He spends liis days weight-lifting, wrestling', and boxing as usual. Among his surprising feats are the holding of two ponies pulling in opposite dierctions, lifting 130 pound weights with his teeth, taking a piano or a pony for a ride on his shoulders, and swinging his sister Alice, who is eight years old, in a saddle belt in his teeth. I have just visited the Mann home, set hack among the birch and pine trees. It is called the “H. and S. Ranch.”—Health and Strength. Mr Mann, who is 43. held the Army wrestling championship, in 1918, and was champion of Yorkshire in 1909. Although his back was broken when a horse rolled on him during the war, he still manages to lift enormous weights with ease. “All my children have been brought up to look on physical fitness almost as a religion.” said Mrs Mann, a tail, strongly-built woman, who is also a weight-lifter. “The two elder boys, Johnnie and Reggie, are being trained by their father in wrestling, boxing and weight-TlfL'Af. and he has high hopes for them.”