When Mair Roberts was a child she broke her arms dozens of times because she suffered brittle bones.
But that did not stop her doubling in size to become a weightlifting champion and one of Wales’ first female bouncers.
“I broke my arms so many times as a child, one 18 times, the other 20,” the 53-year-old said.
“They used to think it was funny at school.”
Other kids would put signs on Mair saying ‘Fragile’ and ‘Handle with care.’
“I didn’t think it was funny because I was constantly bullied,” the mum-of-two and grandmother-of-four said.
“It is so horrible to be bullied. I used to have to run home from school every day.”
‘If I bumped into something, my bones would break’
She recalled injuring herself after crashing her bike.
“I would just have to bump into stuff and they would break,” Mair said.
“I rode into a post and the bone came through my skin.
Read more: This woman lost 6.5 stone in six months and opened a ‘clean eating’ cafe
“My family were absolutely amazed that Mair the fragile one became the first female door worker and then ended up being a body builder.
“They were used to seeing signs being put on my back saying ‘fragile.’”
Never “in a million years” did she think she would be a bouncer.
“I was so small people thought I was on drugs but I did not even know what they were,” she said.
Became a bouncer by accident
She only became a bouncer because her ex-husband asked her to help out searching bags one night at the club where he worked.
“I thought if a woman searched a bag it would be better than a man, but instead they thought I was trying to be hard and would try to take me on,” Mair, who now works at Wrexham club Liquid said.
“The first three years I was taking three shirts to work because of the blood from people fighting.”
That was when she decided to get bigger.
“I decided to take up bodybuilding and I learned to take weapons off people,” she said.
“That has helped me so many times.”
She weighed just five and a half stone
When she began weightlifting she was just 5ft 2ins and weighed five-and-a-half stone.
All her life she “battled to put weight on.”
She started using protein drinks.
“If you can’t eat it, drink it,” she said.
“I started drinking 1,000 calorie protein drinks. There are many people out there who tend to put weight on but I cannot put it on.
“Being a small doorworker was a-battle-and-a-half. I got to nine-and-a half stone and then to 10.”
She was even sponsored by a protein company.
Since she changed her diet she has not suffered with brittle bones.
Started winning bodybuilding titles
In the 1990s, Mair won amateur bodybuilding titles in Wales, the UK and the north-west.
“My biggest one was winning Miss Wales at Barry Island,” Mair said.
“That was amazing because I was the first Welsh girl to win at Barry.
“After that, when I competed in Miss Britain, two coachloads came up from Barry to support me.
“That was amazing because I had never met any of them.”
Decided to have one last go
Mair retired from competition in 1999 but has been a judge and guest poser at contests.
She stopped working out for a few years.
“I was constantly being called a transvestite and people assumed because I have a deep voice that I was on steroids,” she said.
“But I was not. I couldn’t handle that because that was another form of bullying.”
In October she decided to enter one final contest.
She took third in the physique section of the IBFA World Championships.
Now she’s written her life story
“I would have loved to have won but I had made up my mind that it was my last show,” she said.
Mair has now written an as-yet-unpublished book about her life as an athlete and bouncer.
“My book is all about survival,” she added.
“If I can do it, you can do it.”
Courtesy of: Wales Online