By John Hudson

J ohn Potter, who lives with his wife Louise near Corsham in a cottage packed with antiques, turned 70 on Sunday, and is revelling in a new-found love of portrait painting.

That sounds like a nice, gentle retirement hobby for a comfortably-off gentleman – but what most certainly is not is his abiding passion for weightlifting, which sees him working out in a strictly non-trendy gym in Melksham for up to three days a week, still intent on pushing himself to the limit.

At 5ft 6ins, he doesn't seem much like an identikit iron-pumper with county, regional and national records to his credit – until he grasps your hand to shake it, and sets you wondering whether the nearest accident and emergency department is in Chippenham or Bath.

Both painting and the weightlifting go back to his teenage years; but while with the strong man stuff he is simply doing what he always did – performing to the best of his ability – the painting has changed radically.

From graduating from the West of England College of Art in 1956 to 1972 he was a commercial artist, for much of the time with ES and A Robinson, then joint giants of the Bristol packaging scene along with Mardon, Son and Hall.

In 1961, when he was 22 years old and just married, Robinson's asked him to set up a new business in Rhodesia, and after finishing his five-year contract, he went freelance as a designer.

He was also in his physical prime, to the extent that in 1966, he became Rhodesia's lightweight amateur record holder in his speciality, the dead-lift, when he hauled 475lb off the ground and stuck hold of it.

It was a good life for John and Louise Potter and their children Ben and Babs. By now, something of a local celebrity, he opened a fitness centre, but by 1972 the military wings of Robert Mugabe's Zanu and Joshua Nkomo's Zapu parties had begun scattered attacks on isolated white-owned farms.

This became known as the Bush War by white Rhodesians, but urban European settlers too felt disturbed, and the Potters went home.

In England, opportunities for commercial artists were few and far between, but John had experience in management and marketing, and that is how he spent the rest of his career.

Painting played little or no part in his life for all this quarter-century – though weightlifting did, and he became well known among his colleagues as the guy at conferences who sloped off to the gym in the evenings, while they hit the bar. Still competing at a decent level, he had his last great hurrah in 1977, when he won the Avon county middleweight crown in dead-lifting. After he retired at 60, he spent a further six years running the Milo Fitness and Leisure gym in Bath with Louise and Babs.

As far as weightlifting goes, John's interest in it is no great surprise when you consider his father was the local legend Bert Potter, who was lifting at Bristol's Empire Sports Club almost up to his death at the age of 97 three years ago.

There was a gym at the family home in Hanham, but as a teenager, John was also forever around the Empire, where the huge Dave Prowse, bouncer at the Glen dancehall and Darth-Vader-to-be, was a buddy.

Another big name from those early years was the super-lifter Precious McKenzie, while Albert Schwarzenegger also crossed his path.

He first had people taking notice in 1959, when he dead-lifted 365lb though he himself weighed only 105lb. This human-ant feat gave him a South West counties record in every class from nine stones to 12.

Jazz was and remains another of John's great passions. In fact, he adorned the top room of The Laurels, the Hanham property, with a great New Orleans mural which, along with the house, is sadly no more.

It was only some four years ago, after he had sold the Bath gym, that he developed his interest in portrait painting, in the difficult medium of gouache. He and Louise love to visit the galleries of Italy, with their Renaissance masterpieces, and this is what has inspired him to capture the human face. Two of his most successful works to date, painted from photographs, are of his three-year-old great-niece Olivia and of Prince Charles.

So where does it go from here? "I've refused commissions, so far," John says. "I don't want to be inhibited by somebody else's expectations. I'm doing it because I'm enjoying it. In the end, I'd love to exhibit, and share what I'm doing with others."

That sounds good. Just as long as he doesn't shake the more delicate art lovers too firmly by the hand as they walk through the gallery door.