Wearing his trademark neon spandex and a winning smile, Mr Motivator jetted in to the north-east to promote heart health 25 years ago.
At the peak of his 1990s GMTV fitness fame, Mr Motivator – real name Derrick Errol Evans – paid a flying visit to Aberdeen, Inverurie and Peterhead to encourage residents to get fit.
The trip was to launch the fifth anniversary of Grampian Heart Campaign, an innovative 10-year community initiative to reduce coronary heart disease in Grampian.
A quarter of a century on, Mr Motivator has barely aged a day and is still louping around in lycra on TV – but he had his work cut out trying to get Aberdonians exercising in 1996.
Granite City grooving
The Jamaican-born fitness instructor started making a name for himself in the 1980s when the British Heart Foundation asked him to run exercise classes across the country.
It was 1993 before Mr Motivator burst onto breakfast TV with his avante-garde aerobics and quirky quips such as “be happy!”
He was quickly elevated to legend status through his uplifting live workouts and trademark multi-coloured outfits with matching bum-bags.
A household name by the time he flew into Aberdeen in 1996, he had the unenviable task of trying to get men in the Granite City grooving.
The emphasis of the campaign was to encourage men to take their heart health more seriously.
During the 1990s, men in the north-east ran more than double the risk of dying from heart disease than women.
But taking to the stage at Aberdeen Beach Ballroom, however, the turnout was disappointingly low.
With around 60 people in attendance, the men of the north-east were simply not ready for Mr Motivator’s magnificent moves.
Clad in a skintight, floral all-in-one, the then 44-year-old Mr Motivator said: “If this had been the Midlands, hundreds would have turned up.
“We have to get the message over to people to do something about their health and fitness.”
Extolling the virtues of aerobics as exercise – and not just for women – he added: “Men always tend to think of aerobics as easy, but when they do it they realise how tough it is.”
Mr Motivator also put the people of Peterhead through their paces during a session at the community centre where adoring fans delighted in working out with the fitness icon.
The flying visit then saw him take a helicopter to the sports centre in Inverurie where he hoped for an even bigger crowd.
Motivating the north-east
Despite the slight snub in Aberdeen, the ever-cheerful Mr Motivator enjoyed his trip to the region as a healthy heart ambassador and vowed to return.
But it wasn’t his first encounter with the north-east, he teamed up with the Evening Express in the early 1990s to find Aberdeen’s ‘Mini Motivators’.
It was part of a nationwide competition run by Mr Motivator to encourage youngsters to adopt healthy exercise habits.
And the Mitchell family of Bridge of Don were thrilled when mum Yvonne and daughter Michelle won the chance to go to London to meet the main man himself.
Schoolgirl Michelle took part in the recording of a TV workout with Mr Motivator and asked the question many people wanted to know: what was in his trademark bum-bag?
Mum Yvonne said: “It was nothing very exciting… just a tissue.”
But the duo said Mr Motivator “was as charming as he is on TV” and met him for lunch in London afterwards.
And in December 1994, Mr Motivator made a visit to the Beacon Centre in Bucksburn to help the pantomime cast limber up ahead of their Jack and the Beanstalk rehearsals.
Pandemic positivity
After moving back to Jamaica in 2000, Mr Motivator made a welcome return to British TV screens in the late 2000s.
Although he was never far from the silver screen, having released the most fitness DVDs in the UK.
In 2009, the fitness fanatic again leant his backing to the Change4Life health campaign, this time for the NHS and Public Health England encouraging families to get fitter.
More recently, Mr Motivator, now 68, returned to his live morning workouts during the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
Not looking any older than his 1990s heyday, Mr Motivator brought back his positive affirmations and wacky workouts to HealthCheck UK Live to encourage people to get fit in their own homes during lockdown.
