Let us pause, if only for a moment, to observe the passing of Les Mills at 91. The Olympian, the founder of a fitness empire that now spans continents, has shuffled off this mortal coil. And predictably, the British health sector—that bloated, sanctimonious leviathan—has rushed to drape itself in his legacy. How very convenient. They honour a man who preached physical discipline while their own institutions propagate a culture of softness, of 'mindfulness' and 'wellbeing' that would have made a Roman legionary laugh until he choked on his barley ration.
Mills was a throwback, you see. A man forged in the crucible of post-war austerity, when Britain still remembered what it meant to do hard labour. He represented a philosophy: that the body, like the nation, must be tempered through exertion. His gyms were temples not of vanity, but of stoic endurance. Now, in their tribute, the NHS and its cheerleaders co-opt his name to promote their agenda of state-sanctioned coddling. They speak of 'physical activity guidelines' and 'mental health benefits' as if Mills were some sort of proto-socialist wellness guru. The man was a competitor. An individualist. He believed in the grind, not the handout.
This is the tragedy of our age. We honour the form, but abandon the substance. The fitness industry, which Mills helped birth, has become a parody of itself: a billion-pound orgy of Lululemon trousers, electrolyte-infused water, and Instagram influencers who have never known a day of real toil. Meanwhile, the British health sector pats itself on the back for 'tackling obesity' with bicycle schemes and salad recommendations, while the nation grows softer, fatter, and more dependent on the state with each passing year. Mills’s legacy, if it means anything, is a rebuke to this decadence. He did not wait for the government to install a treadmill in his parlour. He ran. He lifted. He sweated like a man who knew that comfort is the enemy of excellence.
Let me draw a parallel to another age. The Roman Empire, in its twilight, grew obsessed with the trappings of fitness without the spirit. Bathhouses expanded. Gladiatorial contests became spectacles of choreographed violence. But the legions themselves—soft, mercenary, reliant on Germanic auxiliaries—crumbled. A nation that celebrates physical culture in theory while wallowing in sloth in practice is a nation in decline. Britain today is that nation. We idolise Mills, but we do not follow him. We erect statues to his name, but we refuse to learn from his example.
The health sector’s tribute is, therefore, a monument to our own hypocrisy. They speak of equity and access, as if the greatest barrier to fitness were not the will, but the wallet. Mills understood that the real barrier is the soul. A man who competed in the 1950s Olympics, when athletes trained in freezing halls on a diet of kippers and porridge, would have little patience for the endless parade of excuses we manufacture today. 'I have no time.' 'The gym is too expensive.' 'My back hurts.' Nonsense. You have time for what you prioritise. You spend money on what you value. And your back aches, I suspect, because you spend twelve hours a day hunched over a glowing screen, waiting for the state to soothe your discomfort.
In the end, Les Mills was a relic of a better era. An era when men did not ask 'is this safe?' but 'is this worth doing?' The British health sector can honour him all it likes; they will never understand him. His empire may survive, but his spirit—that stubborn, unyielding, fiercely individualistic spirit—is already dead. And we, the inheritors of his legacy, are too busy curating our wellness playlists to notice.
Rest well, Mr Mills. You lived in a world that deserved you. We, alas, do not deserve your shadow.
