The day when Burrell showman’s road locomotive No 3159 The Gladiator was pulled from the nettles at Whitelegg’s yard in Exeter in 1953. Pictured are Jim Hancock (by smokebox), Percy Tambling (on front wheel), Derek Webb (by the chimney), Don Pethick, Harold Cornish (on belly tank) and Art Pethick (making up the fire). DON PETHICK COLLECTION
In the summer of 2005, former Gladiator Club’s Burrell showman’s road locomotive The Gladiator and the Anderton & Rowland Grand Organ, of which the club were once custodians, were invited to Perranporth where the two hadn’t been seen together for 25 years, writes Roger Hamlin.
“Pasty ‘ere,” came the voice at the other end of the phone. “Who?” I enquired. “Alan Caple – down in Perranporth. I was speaking to Terry Morcombe and he came up with this idea. It’s at least 25 years since the Gladiator Club came to Perranporth with The Gladiator and the Anderton & Rowland Grand Organ. We were wondering if you’d be interested in coming down for a reunion if we could organise one.”
For the past 50 years the north Cornish coastal town of Perranporth has held a week-long carnival, normally in the third week of July, and the last time Burrell No 3159 of 1909 The Gladiator and the Marenghi Grand Organ of 1906 were there was in 1970, although the engine did attend with a Gavioli organ in 1983.
Not long after the original call, I was told that the reunion would be held on the same ‘green’ by the seafront on the evening of 23 July. Also for the first time, The Gladiator and the organ would lead the carnival procession through the town.
As I arrived in Perranporth just as The Gladiator was coming down the hill to meet the organ at the rugby club, prior to the run through the town, the weather was overcast with intermittent rain, but it didn’t deter the crowds who had come to see the procession. The event was well supported, not only by the number of entries but with lots of people who just came to watch. After the procession The Gladiator and the organ were taken down the beach road to be positioned on the green, just as they’d done all those years ago.
The Gladiator’s 2005 crew: Sam Henwood, Neil James, Alan ‘Pasty’ Caple, Ron Higman, Dave Goodwin and his daughter, Amy.
The engine was reversed into position so as to provide power to the organ, and many passing folk recalled seeing the engine and the Grand Organ in exactly the same place. Then a familiar face came along, that of Nigel Tambling, who is very much involved with steam and engines in Cornwall. A former Gladiator Club member, he’d been at Perranporth all those years ago.
Nigel seemed only too happy to recall the days of the Gladiator Club and suggested a meeting with some other surviving ex-members. One was arranged near Camborne and I met Donald Pethick and John Wing. Don had been involved with his father, Art, right from the start.
The origins of The Gladiator Club go back to a small group at a model engineering evening at Redruth in the early 1950s, when someone suggested ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a full-sized traction engine’.
Group member Ewart Opie knew where there was such an engine, up in Exeter in Whitelegg’s yard. Burrell showman’s road locomotive
No 3159 had been parked up for number of years at the back of the showmen’s quarters. Ewart subsequently ‘did the deal’ by buying it for £250 in 1953 and, in a short while, a crew went to Exeter to get it ready to steam back to Redruth.
