The following memories have been written by life-long Gremlin, Dave Squire.
50 Years Ago to Present Times. Part 1 of 3: 1964 – 1969. "The Early Years"
It was early in 1964 when Rodney Cook and I decided to join Gremlins CC. We had been hearing great things about the Club; Alan Jones, already a prominent member, was Rod’s next door neighbour and I worked with Roy Sellick, who was a new member of the Club.
The Club’s road position record over the previous 4 years was very good, with three seconds and a third; an ‘up and coming club’. These carts, ‘Moby Dick’ in 1960, ‘Union Pacific’ (3rd) in 1961, ‘Antics in Antarctica’ in 1962 and ‘Visit of the Troggs’ in 1963, was establishing Gremlins as an innovative club, pioneering the ‘moving cart’.
This was the Club for us!
On ‘Union Pacific’, the train was meant to move and fold up, as it went in and out of the tunnel at the back of the cart. But using real carriage bogies proved too heavy and the train had to remain static. It would be another 50 years before we got the moving train idea right.
After the Club discussed the admittance of more underage members (Rod and I were 16 years old; underage meant under 18 and Drinking Laws in Pubs were then very strict), we duly joined. Roy Sellick and Malc Cattle were also underage and had joined the year before. The Club’s headquarters was then the ‘Bunch of Grapes’.
Despite 1964 being a watershed for the Club, with many older members leaving, it was exciting times. The Club had decided on the theme of ‘20,000 Leagues under the Sea’ and Geoff Yarham the Captain, explained that the cart was obviously going to be an underwater scene depicting a giant squid attacking a submarine. The squid’s tentacles would be moving by means of compressed air!
This was the Club for us!
The stage show that year needed a mermaid and Rod and I brought our friend, Bob Dalley into the Club. (We didn’t think of using a girl! More on that later). Bob left the Club some years afterwards, to become a prominent member of our arch-rival, Ramblers.
The cart was being built on the old Bridgwater and Albion Rugby Club land where the B & Q north car park now stands. (Previous carts were built at Saltlands.) We were there just for the one year, after which we would be building at Bailey Barletts (for one year) and for 5 years after that, up to and including 1970, at Penzoy Avenue.
As was common in those days, carnival carts were built unprotected in the open.
It soon became evident that the tentacles were never going to be sealed to enable the use of compressed air. The idea was abandoned and the tentacles stuffed with paper and would remain static. The overall idea was still a good one. (Or so we thought.)
This was the Club for us!
DISASTER!
The cart was not good enough and we came 7th. This result was obviously a ‘mistake’, but the results of the next 5 years proved otherwise, with a 5th, 7th, 7th, 7th and 10th place in 1969. That result in the last year was the lowest position the Club had attained and we were beaten by the all-girl club, the ‘Suffragettes’. (We would get our own back over the next few years, with many Club members marrying Suffragettes.)
In 1966, with ‘Ugly Bug Ball’, Dave ‘Ginger’ Smith joined the Club whilst cart building and had the sole job in procession of moving the giant butterfly wings. We moved everything manually in those days and it was a good job he was a strong lad. Ginger is still with us today and along with his wife Wendy, currently being joint Club Presidents.
Towards the end of cart building in that year, it was decided that it would be a good idea if we deck the cart with ferns to represent grass. It was agreed that the nearest source would be at Kingscliffe near North Petherton. We set off with me driving Les Storey’s (an excellent Vice President) newly acquired pick-up truck with Ginger as a passenger. Rodney followed in his van with Bob Dalley and other members; altogether nearly half the Club.
Kingscliffe was a good source and after collecting a sufficient load, we set off back to Bridgwater. Ginger was in the front with me and Bob was in the back of the pick-up, sitting on the ferns to stop them blowing away. (You could do that in those days.) He was waving a scythe at Rodney who was following.
It was a steep downhill road away from Kingscliffe and I applied the brakes to slow down. They didn’t work! Rodney, totally oblivious to what was happening kept following and we were going faster and faster.
There was a ‘T’ junction coming up and I tried to get the van into a lower gear. There was much crunching of gears, but I could not engage. Ginger, seeing the problem, grabbed the handbrake from the dash’ and gave it a hard tug. He pulled it completely out!
We headed for a green hedge but it turned out to be hiding a dry-stone wall!
We hit with some speed and stopped dead. Bob went flying over the cab still waving the scythe, over the hedge and into the field. Ginger was flung forward into the windscreen and I hung onto the steering wheel. There were no seat-belts in those days. Rodney just managed to pull up.
Miraculously no one was seriously injured. There was no other traffic on the roads. Bob and I came through unscathed, but Ginger smashed his mouth on the ‘screen. The van was a ‘write-off’, but it could have been a lot worse. It had been serviced earlier that day and the garage took the responsibility for the failure.
The things we do for carnival – just for seventh place!
Earlier in 1966, the Club had moved their Headquarters down the road in St John Street to the Crown Inn and the Club members experienced great times, drinking and partying. (Did this make up for the lack of winning?)
In these early days, Feature Class on the road was dominated by the Lime Kiln CC. They would travel and compete in all carnivals and were credited with saving Glastonbury Carnival from demise. British Flag CC built spectacular winning carts and Vagabonds CC were always a force to be reckoned with. Ramblers CC and Marketeers CC were newly formed and up-and-coming clubs. The major trophies, for both Bridgwater and the County, were going to the Gangs who were building superior and better lit carts.
Gremlins were going nowhere!
During these lean times the club was held together by older members such as John Reakes, Alan Jones (both at least 2 and 3 years older!) and Gordon Blewett, who joined the Club in 1950. This period saw the club membership drop to 13 total (1966 – Ugly Bug Ball) but the period also saw the addition of new members that are still here today: Phil Pursey, Ginger Smith, John Thorne, Ed Thorne, Jimmy A’Hearne, George Redman, Malc Dennison and Bill King. Significant contributions during this period were made by Dick Richards and Bren Perrett who are sadly no longer with us.
John Thorne took responsibility for the music on the cart during this period. He started when he fully joined in 1969, the year we did ‘Troopers’ and attained our lowest result of 10th place. (This was obviously a coincidence.) John would continue to be responsible for the music for the next 42 years to the present times. He would accompany the cart, fine-tuning the music at every carnival in the circuit. In total and without fail, 292 venues. He began by using 30W of amplification power and ended up to date with 27,000 W (27kW), all the while continually building and up-rating the amplifiers and relentlessly building new and up-rated speakers.
When John joined the Club, his father Ed started to help immediately. A strong man physically, an expert in engineering skills and a superb welder; no task was too big or difficult. He and his wife Alma were to help the Club tremendously over the coming years and were soon to become long standing Club Presidents.
(More on that later)
Roots of the Club, Ideals and Standards started to be laid down in this era. This, along with the outstanding members-yet-to-come, formed the basis of the exceptional Club we have today. From the ‘low’ of 1969, things were going to get better.
The Club’s road position record over the previous 4 years was very good, with three seconds and a third; an ‘up and coming club’. These carts, ‘Moby Dick’ in 1960, ‘Union Pacific’ (3rd) in 1961, ‘Antics in Antarctica’ in 1962 and ‘Visit of the Troggs’ in 1963, was establishing Gremlins as an innovative club, pioneering the ‘moving cart’.
This was the Club for us!
On ‘Union Pacific’, the train was meant to move and fold up, as it went in and out of the tunnel at the back of the cart. But using real carriage bogies proved too heavy and the train had to remain static. It would be another 50 years before we got the moving train idea right.
After the Club discussed the admittance of more underage members (Rod and I were 16 years old; underage meant under 18 and Drinking Laws in Pubs were then very strict), we duly joined. Roy Sellick and Malc Cattle were also underage and had joined the year before. The Club’s headquarters was then the ‘Bunch of Grapes’.
Despite 1964 being a watershed for the Club, with many older members leaving, it was exciting times. The Club had decided on the theme of ‘20,000 Leagues under the Sea’ and Geoff Yarham the Captain, explained that the cart was obviously going to be an underwater scene depicting a giant squid attacking a submarine. The squid’s tentacles would be moving by means of compressed air!
This was the Club for us!
The stage show that year needed a mermaid and Rod and I brought our friend, Bob Dalley into the Club. (We didn’t think of using a girl! More on that later). Bob left the Club some years afterwards, to become a prominent member of our arch-rival, Ramblers.
The cart was being built on the old Bridgwater and Albion Rugby Club land where the B & Q north car park now stands. (Previous carts were built at Saltlands.) We were there just for the one year, after which we would be building at Bailey Barletts (for one year) and for 5 years after that, up to and including 1970, at Penzoy Avenue.
As was common in those days, carnival carts were built unprotected in the open.
It soon became evident that the tentacles were never going to be sealed to enable the use of compressed air. The idea was abandoned and the tentacles stuffed with paper and would remain static. The overall idea was still a good one. (Or so we thought.)
This was the Club for us!
DISASTER!
The cart was not good enough and we came 7th. This result was obviously a ‘mistake’, but the results of the next 5 years proved otherwise, with a 5th, 7th, 7th, 7th and 10th place in 1969. That result in the last year was the lowest position the Club had attained and we were beaten by the all-girl club, the ‘Suffragettes’. (We would get our own back over the next few years, with many Club members marrying Suffragettes.)
In 1966, with ‘Ugly Bug Ball’, Dave ‘Ginger’ Smith joined the Club whilst cart building and had the sole job in procession of moving the giant butterfly wings. We moved everything manually in those days and it was a good job he was a strong lad. Ginger is still with us today and along with his wife Wendy, currently being joint Club Presidents.
Towards the end of cart building in that year, it was decided that it would be a good idea if we deck the cart with ferns to represent grass. It was agreed that the nearest source would be at Kingscliffe near North Petherton. We set off with me driving Les Storey’s (an excellent Vice President) newly acquired pick-up truck with Ginger as a passenger. Rodney followed in his van with Bob Dalley and other members; altogether nearly half the Club.
Kingscliffe was a good source and after collecting a sufficient load, we set off back to Bridgwater. Ginger was in the front with me and Bob was in the back of the pick-up, sitting on the ferns to stop them blowing away. (You could do that in those days.) He was waving a scythe at Rodney who was following.
It was a steep downhill road away from Kingscliffe and I applied the brakes to slow down. They didn’t work! Rodney, totally oblivious to what was happening kept following and we were going faster and faster.
There was a ‘T’ junction coming up and I tried to get the van into a lower gear. There was much crunching of gears, but I could not engage. Ginger, seeing the problem, grabbed the handbrake from the dash’ and gave it a hard tug. He pulled it completely out!
We headed for a green hedge but it turned out to be hiding a dry-stone wall!
We hit with some speed and stopped dead. Bob went flying over the cab still waving the scythe, over the hedge and into the field. Ginger was flung forward into the windscreen and I hung onto the steering wheel. There were no seat-belts in those days. Rodney just managed to pull up.
Miraculously no one was seriously injured. There was no other traffic on the roads. Bob and I came through unscathed, but Ginger smashed his mouth on the ‘screen. The van was a ‘write-off’, but it could have been a lot worse. It had been serviced earlier that day and the garage took the responsibility for the failure.
The things we do for carnival – just for seventh place!
Earlier in 1966, the Club had moved their Headquarters down the road in St John Street to the Crown Inn and the Club members experienced great times, drinking and partying. (Did this make up for the lack of winning?)
In these early days, Feature Class on the road was dominated by the Lime Kiln CC. They would travel and compete in all carnivals and were credited with saving Glastonbury Carnival from demise. British Flag CC built spectacular winning carts and Vagabonds CC were always a force to be reckoned with. Ramblers CC and Marketeers CC were newly formed and up-and-coming clubs. The major trophies, for both Bridgwater and the County, were going to the Gangs who were building superior and better lit carts.
Gremlins were going nowhere!
During these lean times the club was held together by older members such as John Reakes, Alan Jones (both at least 2 and 3 years older!) and Gordon Blewett, who joined the Club in 1950. This period saw the club membership drop to 13 total (1966 – Ugly Bug Ball) but the period also saw the addition of new members that are still here today: Phil Pursey, Ginger Smith, John Thorne, Ed Thorne, Jimmy A’Hearne, George Redman, Malc Dennison and Bill King. Significant contributions during this period were made by Dick Richards and Bren Perrett who are sadly no longer with us.
John Thorne took responsibility for the music on the cart during this period. He started when he fully joined in 1969, the year we did ‘Troopers’ and attained our lowest result of 10th place. (This was obviously a coincidence.) John would continue to be responsible for the music for the next 42 years to the present times. He would accompany the cart, fine-tuning the music at every carnival in the circuit. In total and without fail, 292 venues. He began by using 30W of amplification power and ended up to date with 27,000 W (27kW), all the while continually building and up-rating the amplifiers and relentlessly building new and up-rated speakers.
When John joined the Club, his father Ed started to help immediately. A strong man physically, an expert in engineering skills and a superb welder; no task was too big or difficult. He and his wife Alma were to help the Club tremendously over the coming years and were soon to become long standing Club Presidents.
(More on that later)
Roots of the Club, Ideals and Standards started to be laid down in this era. This, along with the outstanding members-yet-to-come, formed the basis of the exceptional Club we have today. From the ‘low’ of 1969, things were going to get better.
50 Years Ago to Present Times. Part 2 of 3: 1970 – 1987. "The Middle Years"
It was 1970 and we were building the cart at Penzoy Avenue for the last time. Our title was ‘Circus Extravaganza’. The cart consisted of an elephant coming through curtains at the back, a crazy clown car and two seals balancing revolving balls. We needed somebody young to play an ‘elephant boy’, so Derek Thorne (11 years old) was brought into the Club. We were pleased with the outcome of our efforts.
There were only 6 or 7 members on the main floor of the cart, the remaining members were bandsmen located high up at the back. Not seeing many members on the cart was a fundamental mistake, repeated from our 1968, Oriental Carnival, when most of our members could not be seen under the dragon. We did not give it much thought at the time and the mistake was repeated again in the 1976 entry, Yellow Submarine. Despite this, we came 4th, with a 3rd place on stage. The best result for 7 years.
We were going up in the world!
In 1971, the type of carts Gremlins built, transformed dramatically. The club had voted in the ‘total cart’, the idea being ‘Carnival Tijuana Style’. The cart consisted of a giant crocodile with three giant, sombrero wearing, instrument playing figures sat astride it. The figures, one playing a guitar, one playing a trumpet and the other a drum, would move. The drum would be a roundabout, carrying bandsmen on the crocodile’s back, powered by an electric motor with slip-rings for lighting. The cart sides would be dropped, so that personnel would be standing just above the road. (Wow! How did we vote this idea in?) Martin and Mike Cook were two of the youngsters ‘press-ganged’ to manually move the models.
Whilst in the ‘line-up’ getting ready to go (in the early days, the carts lined up in St. John Street, Polden Street, Wellington Road and we were near the station)...
DISASTER!
The lights failed and we were plunged into darkness. We pulled over to let the other carts pass. It soon became evident that we were overloaded and the main fuses had blown. We had no higher rated fuses. John Reakes believed he had something at home, which was at least half a mile away and he set off running.
While waiting in the darkness, the other carts passed and along came the ‘Suffragettes CC’. “You must take part in the Carnival” they shouted. “Take anything you need from our cart – take our generator!” They had nothing we could use and we would not have cannibalised their cart and stopped them going around. This was the true ‘Carnival Spirit’ and we would experience this many times over the years, especially from our arch rivals. Everybody would lend a hand and we have been the first to return the favours. We were getting desperate when a panting Johnny Reakes reappeared. He was carrying a length of heavy cable. He quickly stripped off the insulation and cut bits of bare cable into fuse lengths, fitted them and ‘slapped’ in the fuse-holders. “It’s all or nothing” he cried.
We quickly restarted the generator and switched on the lights. They held! We could not see the end of the procession and we shot off to catch them up. We just made it, joined the end of the line and kept our fingers crossed.
We were in the Carnival!
During the procession, one, then the other of the models stopped moving. Rodney, on the outside, was frantically shouting to his brothers to keep moving. We did not know that the cross-pieces, attached to the central vertical scaffold pole and the means of moving the models, had snapped-off. They were trying to grip the pole and move it with their bare hands! Despite this, the crowds were going wild and applauding madly. It was something we were not used to.
With this revolutionary cart, Bridgwater was won for the first time by the Club. We also came 2nd on stage! (In those days the stage result was given out on Carnival night.) The completed results also gave us the ‘Ker Cup’ for best in procession, this being the first time Gremlins had won it. It was very difficult for a feature to prise this trophy away from the gangs and it would another 21 years before the Club would win it again. The Club also won the Hardy Spicer Championship Cup which was the only major cup the Club had won previously back in 1956 with ‘Nursery Fantasy’
Jubilation! The Club could not remember the wild celebrations of Thursday night and Friday morning at the ‘Crown Inn’. It was that good! Many of the members carried on straight into the Black Friday winner’s celebrations.
Black Friday turned into Black Sunday a long time later, when carnival changed from Thursday to the Friday and the winning celebration was held on the Sunday. The ‘black’ term began to be used in the 1960’s for the day-after celebrations. The Pub licensing laws meant that the sale of drinks would stop for the afternoon at 2.00pm. After 2.00pm on ‘Black Friday’, the doors of the pub’ would be locked, the windows closed, the blinds drawn and drinking would continue in a dark (black), hushed and ‘secret’ environment, all expecting a Police raid if things got out of hand. They never did raid of course, the police knowing full well what was going on. Most of the Town’s drinkers were in one place and out of harms way.
After winning at Bridgwater, we quickly realised that we had only booked in for the next 2 carnivals at North Petherton and Highbridge & Burnham. (It wasn’t only Burnham in those days.) We were sure that the rest of the county would want to see the winning Bridgwater cart, so we quickly contacted the other 4 carnival organisers. At Weston Super Mare we received a great reception (Much whiskey, which was not forgotten). We were in the County Carnivals.
But the rest of the County were not ready for us! We only picked up one other win at Weston Super Mare. The results in order were: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, unplaced, 2nd & 1st.
Gremlins were lead during this momentous year by Rodney, the new Captain. He was the first captain to tread the fine line of being responsible and being ‘one of the boys’: a tradition in the Cub that would be ‘mandatory’ for all future Captains. He would captain the Club for the next 2 years with ‘Underworld, and ‘Beatles’, establishing Gremlins as a ‘new kid on the block’ around the County circuit. From that first win in Bridgwater, Gremlins would compete in every one of the seven County Carnivals.
After standing down for 3 years, Rodney again took up the mantle of captain for a further 7 years, making 10 years in total. This was a very long time in our Club and is a term that no future captain has matched.
Travelling in 1971 with ‘Tijuana’ brought its own problems. We had little experience in dragging the cart to the mid-Somerset venues and this would not have been achieved without the efforts of Angie Perrett, who gave us tremendous help, being one of the few volunteers to take the cart to Shepton Mallet. (The last minute decision to compete around the County meant that most members could not get the time off.) The achievement was all the more so considering she was a woman (a very un-PC comment!). Although using women for the stage when required, piano playing, singing, choreography and make-up etc, Gremlins was still an all-male membership club. It would still be many years before women rightly become full members of the Club.
Our headquarters was at the Crown Inn at the start of this period and we were very happy there. The Landlord and Landlady were Bob and Sheila Williams, great proprietors who had a young son, Bob. Young Bob would follow us everywhere and would eventually join the club. But after a few years, he would leave to become a leading light of Marketeers CC. In 1974, the atmosphere changed (literally) when Bob and Sheila left for ‘pastures green’. The new Landlady, Daphne, raised goats and kept them in the Men’s toilet! Time to leave.
In 1975, after a brief episode at the Lion’s Club, we moved our headquarters to ‘The Shack’ (the Railway Club) in Wellington road.
It was at this time that the Club made Ed and Alma joint Presidents of Gremlins CC, a decision the Club would never regret. This decision was contrary to the norm. Prior to this, the Club traditionally chose the Landlord and Landlady of the Pub’ headquarters.
Over the years, much of the off-cart work was carried out at Ed and Alma’s place and it became a second home for the Club. All the while Alma would provide unlimited refreshments and hold big parties, some with marquees on her extensive lawns. Great times.
Massive structures were constructed there, such as the frame modules for ‘Galactic Guardians’, the half carts for ‘Circus comes to Town’ and the new cart chassis. (built in two halves so we could get it out.) Carnival appeared to be a way of life for Ed and Alma, never hesitating to help other clubs when asked, but always putting Gremlins first. They would continue to be Joint Presidents up until 2003, when we sadly lost Alma. Ed would carry on as President until he stood down in 2011, a span of 35 years. The Club would not forget their efforts.
The proprietors of ‘The Shack’ were Pam and ‘Nipper’ Owens and they treated us very well. We were there for 6 years. In 1981 we were offered the chance to move to the ‘Newmarket Hotel, then under the new management of Geoff Paisey. After much debate, we moved and we were at this venue until the end of this ‘Middle Period’.
The 1972 ‘Underworld’ entry proved that the previous year’s success was not a freak result. Despite coming 2nd in Bridgwater; gaining three 1sts, one 2nd and one 3rd in the county, gave us our first County Cup, the Midsomer Norton Cup for best feature. More celebrations. We were unplaced at North Petherton, which was the start of our ‘not-so-good results’ at this venue. (There were a few good results)
The cart that year had the members as mythical sea creatures sat astride giant bobbing sea-horses and carrying lighted tridents, a scene that has often been repeated by other clubs since. The sea-horses were successfully moved using an electric motor, gearboxes and cranks. The Club would never go back to manually moved models again.
The 1973 ‘Beatles’ entry was still an ‘OK year’; with a third place both on stage and in the Bridgwater procession. We also gained third place generally throughout the County.
The 1974 Bridgwater carnival saw our ‘Christmas’ entry achieve a first place in the Concerts, winning the White Hart Cup for the first time and also being the first time the club had won the stage since its entry in 1956, ‘Nursery Fantasy’
The cart consisted of a giant reindeer standing on its back legs and pulling a giant sleigh carrying Santa Claus. We had high expectations but we only came 5th. As the stage results were given out at the same time in those days, we still had a lot to celebrate that night and we did.
However in the County Carnivals we achieved 2nd places at North Petherton and Burnham; excellent results which meant we were now challenging for a first place.
The weather on the Wednesday travelling to Shepton Mallet was terrible, with continuous torrential rain and high winds.
DISASTER!
Water must have got into the reindeer and made it very heavy. As we were moving into the line-up, it collapsed from its rear legs! We quickly propped it up using a 45 gallon oil-drum. We camouflaged the drum with white bonded fibre wool we were using as snow on the floor of the cart. It would look like a snow mound. (The wool was very soggy in the heavy rain)
We won Shepton that night and went on to win at Wells and Weston, picking up a 2nd place at Glastonbury. These were our best results. Many people said that the cart looked a lot better with the reindeer at a lower angle! More celebrations. These results gave us our second County Cup, the Midsomer Norton Cup again for best feature. What happened in Bridgwater we never knew?
All in all, a good year; we were getting back on top.
This was reinforced in 1975 with our ‘Hans Anderson’ entry. It won both the stage and the road in Bridgwater. It was the first time the Club had won ‘the Double’. We also won the ‘Winslade cup’ (now awarded for ‘best lighting’) in the Squibbing competition. (More on that later.) Jubilation and Celebrations!
Great results around the County meant that we won the Midsomer Norton county cup again. A truly memorable year. We were back on top!
DISASTER!
1976 ‘Yellow Submarine’ and 1977 ‘Alice’ were terrible years for results. Although achieving a second place on stage with ‘Alice’, positions of 6th and 7th place on the road in Bridgwater and faring even worse around the County, meant the Club was again in the ‘wilderness’ and going nowhere.
1976 saw Malcolm ‘Dinger’ Bell join the Club. ‘Dinger’ was the son of a founder member, John ‘Dinger’ Bell Snr and was the first and only son of a founder member to join. What he thought of the club down at those depths, he never said. He went on to be Captain of the Club, eventually bringing in his own sons and daughter as members. His son Tom also became Captain. We now await the arrival of the fourth generation of Bell to join the Club, as Dinger’s grandson is soon to become a junior member. Today we have many sons and daughters as members.
After the 1977 carnivals, a ‘Post Mortem’ was held and it was decided that on the Submarine cart, although it was a good technical achievement, the Club had made the fundamental mistake of not being able to see any members on the cart coming down the road. We would not make this mistake again and every aspect would be taken into account. ‘Alice’, although having a good stage show was just a bad cart. The Club had to refocus.
It was early 1978 and the Club was discussing the idea of ‘Space’. We were looking at sketches of a landed ‘Star Trek’ type spaceship on legs. We were quite pleased with the results, when John Thorne stood up and said “Let’s get rid of the cart altogether – we have the skills to do it”. The Club was stunned. It was a brilliant idea. Our entry would be the spaceship-on-legs moving directly on the road, without being built on top of a cart chassis. ‘Galactic Guardians’ was born. With this groundbreaking cart, the Club took Bridgwater by storm. The crowds applauded wildly and cars could and did drive under it! Gremlins won Bridgwater for the third time and picked up the Hardy Spicer Championship Cup, having gained second place in the concerts. Cue for more wild celebrations.
We failed to achieve a clean sweep of firsts throughout the County, as Wells and Glastonbury only gave us second places. (We never understood why.) However, the achievement was enough to make us overall County Champions, winning the Starkey Cup for the first time and wrenching it away from the Tableaux clubs. Cue for more wild celebrations.
We repeated the Science Fiction/Space theme another 3 times to date – all winning first place in Bridgwater.
The role of Captain varies in many clubs. There are Club Captains, Cart Captains Stage Captains, Road-crew Captains and god-only-knows, other captains. In Gremlins there is only one Captain. Always has been and hopefully always will be. He is the ultimate member, responsible for many things outside the meetings, especially for cart building and the processions. He is the man in charge and his decisions are rarely challenged. Being in charge in this manner does not come without cost. The commitment and dedication required by the club, has meant that we ‘burn-out’ captains in two or three years. (There are some exceptions.) We have had many captains, all of them good and some of them exceptional. Another plus point for us is that they would never leave the Club and their valued experience was never lost. A point in question was that on one particular day, during the end of the 2011 cart build, there were no fewer than 14 ex-Captains working on the cart.
Gremlins was getting the reputation of a hard-working/hard-drinking club during this period. Nights out with other clubs over concerts were legendary. The Club en-force, would visit every club and they in-turn would visit you. Drinking and singing all night without repetition was the order of the day, with Ramblers probably being the most ‘accomplished’ club. Our nights out with Vagabonds at the Old Oak, generally ended with a giant ‘scrum-down’ in the High Street. We all knew where the ‘laties’ (Licensing hours extensions) were being held and in the early days, all clubs would wear their current costumes around the town during the Concerts. There was much revelry and it appeared that the whole town was taken over by Carnival. The Carnival Concerts in those days would finish late; sometimes 1 o’clock in the morning and the audience would take sandwiches and drink to sustain them.
On Carnival night, after the simultaneous squibbing display, the clubs would take part (in-turn) in a squibbing competition (formation squibbing); competing for the Winslade cup and the results would go towards the overall championship cup, the Hardy Spicer. This again would go on to the small hours. The competition would take place in the High Street with judges viewing from the town hall balcony. Fights and rowdy behaviour from the public were common, with many of the public getting a squib-cosh in the face, for trying to light your squib whilst marching into position.
Gremlins generally did well in this competition, which was always led by John Reakes. The competition did detract from the enjoyment of the Carnival Night and the clubs decided they would do it no longer. The Winslade, a magnificent solid silver cup presented to the winners of the squibbing competition, is now awarded for ‘Best Lighting’.
An insight into how crowd behaviour has changed for the better over the years is that now we have young women (members) regularly taking part in the Simultaneous Squibbing Display; an unheard of scenario back then. (Although I think I can remember a couple of women from the Hinkley Point/Bohemians CC taking part. This Gang was a very successful mixed Tableau club). There was rarely any trouble between the Clubs. Although the rivalry was intense, trouble did not raise its head.
In 1979 we did ‘Glen Miller’. It was not a bad year, but considering the outstanding cart we produced the previous year, the ‘Glen Millar’ cart was ordinary. We had great costumes though. Here it must be said that although we paid meticulous attention to detail, on the colour of the trousers there was a revolt. They should have been a shade of pink. The Club members would not wear pink; it was a girl’s colour. We compromised on khaki. (Good job there wasn’t a war on). We came 3rd on the road in Bridgwater, with a 2nd, 3rd and mostly 4th places around the County. We ‘took a year off’ as Rodney put it. We had to get back on top and we came up with ‘Warriors of the Equinox’ in 1980. (It sounded good at the time). It was a disaster! I remember being embarrassed on stage despite coming 5th. God only knows what the other clubs were like. The road result was even worse. 8th, the second lowest position the club had ever experienced, beaten only by the 1969, 10th placed ‘Troopers’ cart.
We were down, really down. It seemed we were a ‘Yo-Yo’ Club; up then down.
The Club bounced back again in 1981 with their entry ‘Carnival Caribbean Style’. The stage show was going to be different. We would not be using the Band. Up to this year, and for some time afterwards, the clubs (features) had to use the same live orchestra. Some Tableaux had begun to use taped music for their scenes, but all the features used the Band, an equalising factor. A departure from this occurred seven years earlier, again pioneered by Gremlins. The Club had a live ‘Beatle’ group on stage and used their own members playing the electric guitars and drums. (After some debate by the Carnival Committee, this was allowed) This 1973 entry came 3rd on stage, with the Club truly believing that the judges never realised that the group was live and was marked down.
Back to the Caribbean. The show would revolve around a Jamaican steel band. The Club would manufacture the steel drums and play them live on stage. We drafted in Eddie from Bristol who would show us his drums to take copies and train us how to play them. Eddie and his son, who played guitar, ended up going on stage with us. It was a great show, but we were edged into second place. Again the club thought that the judges never realised that the show was live. But the ‘Equinox’ experience was truly behind us.
The road entry was also a great show, bright, colourful and energetic. Basically it consisted of four giant rotating rings carrying dancers. But again we were beaten into 2nd place. New judging rules had been introduced and under the old system we would have won. ‘Swings and roundabouts’ come to mind. We picked up three first and three seconds around the County. Another successful year.
1982, with ‘The Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’, an idea similarly repeated by Marketeers last year (2011), was another ‘so-so’ year. But with 3rd position in town and second and third places around the county (nothing at Petherton of course), we were still in touch.
1983 brought ‘Circus comes to Town’ and with it, great success. During a meeting discussing the idea, John Thorne suggested we build two smaller carts and create a ‘train’ of 4 units. There was much discussion on whether the cart would go around the circuit. John was adamant that wherever the tractor would go, the other units would follow exactly. The Club was unconvinced. So a scale model of the trailers was brought in which proved John’s point. The ‘train’ idea was in! The idea would consist of a steam traction engine towing two trailers carrying circus personnel and a further trailer as a fairground organ which would disguise the generator. It was a difficult and hard year. Two new cart trailers had to be built to start with. Ed Thorne volunteered to convert our tractor to a traction engine at his house.
The Club was delighted when it saw the tractor unit for the first time towards the end cart building. It really did look like a traction engine, complete with rotating spoked flywheel and moving belt! We were lined up in Parkway for the start of the Bridgwater Carnival, creating a lot of interest with our entry and we started to pull out...
DISASTER!
The front turntable pin was not properly secured and dropped out. We continued to pull the front axial and turntable unit completely away from the leading cart and the front crashed down onto the road. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it looked like we were not going to take part in the Carnival. However in true ‘Gremlin fashion’ the Club rallied round. A spectator who lived nearby said he had a welding set and promptly ran off for it. Another spectator said he had a JCB further up the line, to lift the front of the cart. All the while the procession was passing us by. The front of the cart was lifted; the turntable, with some effort, was dragged back under and the pin reinserted and welded-off. Miraculously a pair of old curtains appeared to camouflage the damage to the front. We were ready, but unfortunately the last cart had already passed. We moved off fast to catch the end of the procession. (We’ve done that before). We made it and the atmosphere was electric.
With these 4 units and the energetic circus atmosphere created by the members, the Club ‘swept-the-board’, winning Bridgwater and the remaining 6 carnivals. The Club was truly on top. Although wining everywhere, one of the results was a joint-first and we failed to get the overall ‘Starkey’ County Cup, which went to a Tableau. (It must have been a fix). As a side note, the turntable pin was replaced and the original was cleaned, lacquered and mounted, to form the Club’s annual ‘Cock-up’ cup.
In 1984, Gremlins presented ‘Alpine Puppeteers’. It was a wild, wild year, full of endless parties and incessant drinking. Despite this or probably because of it, we came 3rd at Bridgwater. It no way compared to the outstanding results of the previous year. Picking up 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places around the County was no consolation.
It felt like we were about to drift. We did.
1985 saw the ‘World of Pantomime’ which produced a 7th place in Bridgwater (Sounds familiar). Worse in the County Carnivals; it was a bad cart and a bad year.
1986 gave us ‘Mardi Gras’, nearly a ‘Black and White Minstrel’ idea. We attained a lowly 6th place in Bridgwater, but the results got better around the County and we achieved 3rd place County features. However, this did not make up for the Bridgwater result.
1987 with ‘Parade of the Matadors’, the club was going to show Marketeers how to do ‘Perspex’. It was a very, very difficult and time consuming cart to build. We did not show anybody. We came 6th.
Gremlins would not try to build the way other clubs build, again.
There were only 6 or 7 members on the main floor of the cart, the remaining members were bandsmen located high up at the back. Not seeing many members on the cart was a fundamental mistake, repeated from our 1968, Oriental Carnival, when most of our members could not be seen under the dragon. We did not give it much thought at the time and the mistake was repeated again in the 1976 entry, Yellow Submarine. Despite this, we came 4th, with a 3rd place on stage. The best result for 7 years.
We were going up in the world!
In 1971, the type of carts Gremlins built, transformed dramatically. The club had voted in the ‘total cart’, the idea being ‘Carnival Tijuana Style’. The cart consisted of a giant crocodile with three giant, sombrero wearing, instrument playing figures sat astride it. The figures, one playing a guitar, one playing a trumpet and the other a drum, would move. The drum would be a roundabout, carrying bandsmen on the crocodile’s back, powered by an electric motor with slip-rings for lighting. The cart sides would be dropped, so that personnel would be standing just above the road. (Wow! How did we vote this idea in?) Martin and Mike Cook were two of the youngsters ‘press-ganged’ to manually move the models.
Whilst in the ‘line-up’ getting ready to go (in the early days, the carts lined up in St. John Street, Polden Street, Wellington Road and we were near the station)...
DISASTER!
The lights failed and we were plunged into darkness. We pulled over to let the other carts pass. It soon became evident that we were overloaded and the main fuses had blown. We had no higher rated fuses. John Reakes believed he had something at home, which was at least half a mile away and he set off running.
While waiting in the darkness, the other carts passed and along came the ‘Suffragettes CC’. “You must take part in the Carnival” they shouted. “Take anything you need from our cart – take our generator!” They had nothing we could use and we would not have cannibalised their cart and stopped them going around. This was the true ‘Carnival Spirit’ and we would experience this many times over the years, especially from our arch rivals. Everybody would lend a hand and we have been the first to return the favours. We were getting desperate when a panting Johnny Reakes reappeared. He was carrying a length of heavy cable. He quickly stripped off the insulation and cut bits of bare cable into fuse lengths, fitted them and ‘slapped’ in the fuse-holders. “It’s all or nothing” he cried.
We quickly restarted the generator and switched on the lights. They held! We could not see the end of the procession and we shot off to catch them up. We just made it, joined the end of the line and kept our fingers crossed.
We were in the Carnival!
During the procession, one, then the other of the models stopped moving. Rodney, on the outside, was frantically shouting to his brothers to keep moving. We did not know that the cross-pieces, attached to the central vertical scaffold pole and the means of moving the models, had snapped-off. They were trying to grip the pole and move it with their bare hands! Despite this, the crowds were going wild and applauding madly. It was something we were not used to.
With this revolutionary cart, Bridgwater was won for the first time by the Club. We also came 2nd on stage! (In those days the stage result was given out on Carnival night.) The completed results also gave us the ‘Ker Cup’ for best in procession, this being the first time Gremlins had won it. It was very difficult for a feature to prise this trophy away from the gangs and it would another 21 years before the Club would win it again. The Club also won the Hardy Spicer Championship Cup which was the only major cup the Club had won previously back in 1956 with ‘Nursery Fantasy’
Jubilation! The Club could not remember the wild celebrations of Thursday night and Friday morning at the ‘Crown Inn’. It was that good! Many of the members carried on straight into the Black Friday winner’s celebrations.
Black Friday turned into Black Sunday a long time later, when carnival changed from Thursday to the Friday and the winning celebration was held on the Sunday. The ‘black’ term began to be used in the 1960’s for the day-after celebrations. The Pub licensing laws meant that the sale of drinks would stop for the afternoon at 2.00pm. After 2.00pm on ‘Black Friday’, the doors of the pub’ would be locked, the windows closed, the blinds drawn and drinking would continue in a dark (black), hushed and ‘secret’ environment, all expecting a Police raid if things got out of hand. They never did raid of course, the police knowing full well what was going on. Most of the Town’s drinkers were in one place and out of harms way.
After winning at Bridgwater, we quickly realised that we had only booked in for the next 2 carnivals at North Petherton and Highbridge & Burnham. (It wasn’t only Burnham in those days.) We were sure that the rest of the county would want to see the winning Bridgwater cart, so we quickly contacted the other 4 carnival organisers. At Weston Super Mare we received a great reception (Much whiskey, which was not forgotten). We were in the County Carnivals.
But the rest of the County were not ready for us! We only picked up one other win at Weston Super Mare. The results in order were: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, unplaced, 2nd & 1st.
Gremlins were lead during this momentous year by Rodney, the new Captain. He was the first captain to tread the fine line of being responsible and being ‘one of the boys’: a tradition in the Cub that would be ‘mandatory’ for all future Captains. He would captain the Club for the next 2 years with ‘Underworld, and ‘Beatles’, establishing Gremlins as a ‘new kid on the block’ around the County circuit. From that first win in Bridgwater, Gremlins would compete in every one of the seven County Carnivals.
After standing down for 3 years, Rodney again took up the mantle of captain for a further 7 years, making 10 years in total. This was a very long time in our Club and is a term that no future captain has matched.
Travelling in 1971 with ‘Tijuana’ brought its own problems. We had little experience in dragging the cart to the mid-Somerset venues and this would not have been achieved without the efforts of Angie Perrett, who gave us tremendous help, being one of the few volunteers to take the cart to Shepton Mallet. (The last minute decision to compete around the County meant that most members could not get the time off.) The achievement was all the more so considering she was a woman (a very un-PC comment!). Although using women for the stage when required, piano playing, singing, choreography and make-up etc, Gremlins was still an all-male membership club. It would still be many years before women rightly become full members of the Club.
Our headquarters was at the Crown Inn at the start of this period and we were very happy there. The Landlord and Landlady were Bob and Sheila Williams, great proprietors who had a young son, Bob. Young Bob would follow us everywhere and would eventually join the club. But after a few years, he would leave to become a leading light of Marketeers CC. In 1974, the atmosphere changed (literally) when Bob and Sheila left for ‘pastures green’. The new Landlady, Daphne, raised goats and kept them in the Men’s toilet! Time to leave.
In 1975, after a brief episode at the Lion’s Club, we moved our headquarters to ‘The Shack’ (the Railway Club) in Wellington road.
It was at this time that the Club made Ed and Alma joint Presidents of Gremlins CC, a decision the Club would never regret. This decision was contrary to the norm. Prior to this, the Club traditionally chose the Landlord and Landlady of the Pub’ headquarters.
Over the years, much of the off-cart work was carried out at Ed and Alma’s place and it became a second home for the Club. All the while Alma would provide unlimited refreshments and hold big parties, some with marquees on her extensive lawns. Great times.
Massive structures were constructed there, such as the frame modules for ‘Galactic Guardians’, the half carts for ‘Circus comes to Town’ and the new cart chassis. (built in two halves so we could get it out.) Carnival appeared to be a way of life for Ed and Alma, never hesitating to help other clubs when asked, but always putting Gremlins first. They would continue to be Joint Presidents up until 2003, when we sadly lost Alma. Ed would carry on as President until he stood down in 2011, a span of 35 years. The Club would not forget their efforts.
The proprietors of ‘The Shack’ were Pam and ‘Nipper’ Owens and they treated us very well. We were there for 6 years. In 1981 we were offered the chance to move to the ‘Newmarket Hotel, then under the new management of Geoff Paisey. After much debate, we moved and we were at this venue until the end of this ‘Middle Period’.
The 1972 ‘Underworld’ entry proved that the previous year’s success was not a freak result. Despite coming 2nd in Bridgwater; gaining three 1sts, one 2nd and one 3rd in the county, gave us our first County Cup, the Midsomer Norton Cup for best feature. More celebrations. We were unplaced at North Petherton, which was the start of our ‘not-so-good results’ at this venue. (There were a few good results)
The cart that year had the members as mythical sea creatures sat astride giant bobbing sea-horses and carrying lighted tridents, a scene that has often been repeated by other clubs since. The sea-horses were successfully moved using an electric motor, gearboxes and cranks. The Club would never go back to manually moved models again.
The 1973 ‘Beatles’ entry was still an ‘OK year’; with a third place both on stage and in the Bridgwater procession. We also gained third place generally throughout the County.
The 1974 Bridgwater carnival saw our ‘Christmas’ entry achieve a first place in the Concerts, winning the White Hart Cup for the first time and also being the first time the club had won the stage since its entry in 1956, ‘Nursery Fantasy’
The cart consisted of a giant reindeer standing on its back legs and pulling a giant sleigh carrying Santa Claus. We had high expectations but we only came 5th. As the stage results were given out at the same time in those days, we still had a lot to celebrate that night and we did.
However in the County Carnivals we achieved 2nd places at North Petherton and Burnham; excellent results which meant we were now challenging for a first place.
The weather on the Wednesday travelling to Shepton Mallet was terrible, with continuous torrential rain and high winds.
DISASTER!
Water must have got into the reindeer and made it very heavy. As we were moving into the line-up, it collapsed from its rear legs! We quickly propped it up using a 45 gallon oil-drum. We camouflaged the drum with white bonded fibre wool we were using as snow on the floor of the cart. It would look like a snow mound. (The wool was very soggy in the heavy rain)
We won Shepton that night and went on to win at Wells and Weston, picking up a 2nd place at Glastonbury. These were our best results. Many people said that the cart looked a lot better with the reindeer at a lower angle! More celebrations. These results gave us our second County Cup, the Midsomer Norton Cup again for best feature. What happened in Bridgwater we never knew?
All in all, a good year; we were getting back on top.
This was reinforced in 1975 with our ‘Hans Anderson’ entry. It won both the stage and the road in Bridgwater. It was the first time the Club had won ‘the Double’. We also won the ‘Winslade cup’ (now awarded for ‘best lighting’) in the Squibbing competition. (More on that later.) Jubilation and Celebrations!
Great results around the County meant that we won the Midsomer Norton county cup again. A truly memorable year. We were back on top!
DISASTER!
1976 ‘Yellow Submarine’ and 1977 ‘Alice’ were terrible years for results. Although achieving a second place on stage with ‘Alice’, positions of 6th and 7th place on the road in Bridgwater and faring even worse around the County, meant the Club was again in the ‘wilderness’ and going nowhere.
1976 saw Malcolm ‘Dinger’ Bell join the Club. ‘Dinger’ was the son of a founder member, John ‘Dinger’ Bell Snr and was the first and only son of a founder member to join. What he thought of the club down at those depths, he never said. He went on to be Captain of the Club, eventually bringing in his own sons and daughter as members. His son Tom also became Captain. We now await the arrival of the fourth generation of Bell to join the Club, as Dinger’s grandson is soon to become a junior member. Today we have many sons and daughters as members.
After the 1977 carnivals, a ‘Post Mortem’ was held and it was decided that on the Submarine cart, although it was a good technical achievement, the Club had made the fundamental mistake of not being able to see any members on the cart coming down the road. We would not make this mistake again and every aspect would be taken into account. ‘Alice’, although having a good stage show was just a bad cart. The Club had to refocus.
It was early 1978 and the Club was discussing the idea of ‘Space’. We were looking at sketches of a landed ‘Star Trek’ type spaceship on legs. We were quite pleased with the results, when John Thorne stood up and said “Let’s get rid of the cart altogether – we have the skills to do it”. The Club was stunned. It was a brilliant idea. Our entry would be the spaceship-on-legs moving directly on the road, without being built on top of a cart chassis. ‘Galactic Guardians’ was born. With this groundbreaking cart, the Club took Bridgwater by storm. The crowds applauded wildly and cars could and did drive under it! Gremlins won Bridgwater for the third time and picked up the Hardy Spicer Championship Cup, having gained second place in the concerts. Cue for more wild celebrations.
We failed to achieve a clean sweep of firsts throughout the County, as Wells and Glastonbury only gave us second places. (We never understood why.) However, the achievement was enough to make us overall County Champions, winning the Starkey Cup for the first time and wrenching it away from the Tableaux clubs. Cue for more wild celebrations.
We repeated the Science Fiction/Space theme another 3 times to date – all winning first place in Bridgwater.
The role of Captain varies in many clubs. There are Club Captains, Cart Captains Stage Captains, Road-crew Captains and god-only-knows, other captains. In Gremlins there is only one Captain. Always has been and hopefully always will be. He is the ultimate member, responsible for many things outside the meetings, especially for cart building and the processions. He is the man in charge and his decisions are rarely challenged. Being in charge in this manner does not come without cost. The commitment and dedication required by the club, has meant that we ‘burn-out’ captains in two or three years. (There are some exceptions.) We have had many captains, all of them good and some of them exceptional. Another plus point for us is that they would never leave the Club and their valued experience was never lost. A point in question was that on one particular day, during the end of the 2011 cart build, there were no fewer than 14 ex-Captains working on the cart.
Gremlins was getting the reputation of a hard-working/hard-drinking club during this period. Nights out with other clubs over concerts were legendary. The Club en-force, would visit every club and they in-turn would visit you. Drinking and singing all night without repetition was the order of the day, with Ramblers probably being the most ‘accomplished’ club. Our nights out with Vagabonds at the Old Oak, generally ended with a giant ‘scrum-down’ in the High Street. We all knew where the ‘laties’ (Licensing hours extensions) were being held and in the early days, all clubs would wear their current costumes around the town during the Concerts. There was much revelry and it appeared that the whole town was taken over by Carnival. The Carnival Concerts in those days would finish late; sometimes 1 o’clock in the morning and the audience would take sandwiches and drink to sustain them.
On Carnival night, after the simultaneous squibbing display, the clubs would take part (in-turn) in a squibbing competition (formation squibbing); competing for the Winslade cup and the results would go towards the overall championship cup, the Hardy Spicer. This again would go on to the small hours. The competition would take place in the High Street with judges viewing from the town hall balcony. Fights and rowdy behaviour from the public were common, with many of the public getting a squib-cosh in the face, for trying to light your squib whilst marching into position.
Gremlins generally did well in this competition, which was always led by John Reakes. The competition did detract from the enjoyment of the Carnival Night and the clubs decided they would do it no longer. The Winslade, a magnificent solid silver cup presented to the winners of the squibbing competition, is now awarded for ‘Best Lighting’.
An insight into how crowd behaviour has changed for the better over the years is that now we have young women (members) regularly taking part in the Simultaneous Squibbing Display; an unheard of scenario back then. (Although I think I can remember a couple of women from the Hinkley Point/Bohemians CC taking part. This Gang was a very successful mixed Tableau club). There was rarely any trouble between the Clubs. Although the rivalry was intense, trouble did not raise its head.
In 1979 we did ‘Glen Miller’. It was not a bad year, but considering the outstanding cart we produced the previous year, the ‘Glen Millar’ cart was ordinary. We had great costumes though. Here it must be said that although we paid meticulous attention to detail, on the colour of the trousers there was a revolt. They should have been a shade of pink. The Club members would not wear pink; it was a girl’s colour. We compromised on khaki. (Good job there wasn’t a war on). We came 3rd on the road in Bridgwater, with a 2nd, 3rd and mostly 4th places around the County. We ‘took a year off’ as Rodney put it. We had to get back on top and we came up with ‘Warriors of the Equinox’ in 1980. (It sounded good at the time). It was a disaster! I remember being embarrassed on stage despite coming 5th. God only knows what the other clubs were like. The road result was even worse. 8th, the second lowest position the club had ever experienced, beaten only by the 1969, 10th placed ‘Troopers’ cart.
We were down, really down. It seemed we were a ‘Yo-Yo’ Club; up then down.
The Club bounced back again in 1981 with their entry ‘Carnival Caribbean Style’. The stage show was going to be different. We would not be using the Band. Up to this year, and for some time afterwards, the clubs (features) had to use the same live orchestra. Some Tableaux had begun to use taped music for their scenes, but all the features used the Band, an equalising factor. A departure from this occurred seven years earlier, again pioneered by Gremlins. The Club had a live ‘Beatle’ group on stage and used their own members playing the electric guitars and drums. (After some debate by the Carnival Committee, this was allowed) This 1973 entry came 3rd on stage, with the Club truly believing that the judges never realised that the group was live and was marked down.
Back to the Caribbean. The show would revolve around a Jamaican steel band. The Club would manufacture the steel drums and play them live on stage. We drafted in Eddie from Bristol who would show us his drums to take copies and train us how to play them. Eddie and his son, who played guitar, ended up going on stage with us. It was a great show, but we were edged into second place. Again the club thought that the judges never realised that the show was live. But the ‘Equinox’ experience was truly behind us.
The road entry was also a great show, bright, colourful and energetic. Basically it consisted of four giant rotating rings carrying dancers. But again we were beaten into 2nd place. New judging rules had been introduced and under the old system we would have won. ‘Swings and roundabouts’ come to mind. We picked up three first and three seconds around the County. Another successful year.
1982, with ‘The Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’, an idea similarly repeated by Marketeers last year (2011), was another ‘so-so’ year. But with 3rd position in town and second and third places around the county (nothing at Petherton of course), we were still in touch.
1983 brought ‘Circus comes to Town’ and with it, great success. During a meeting discussing the idea, John Thorne suggested we build two smaller carts and create a ‘train’ of 4 units. There was much discussion on whether the cart would go around the circuit. John was adamant that wherever the tractor would go, the other units would follow exactly. The Club was unconvinced. So a scale model of the trailers was brought in which proved John’s point. The ‘train’ idea was in! The idea would consist of a steam traction engine towing two trailers carrying circus personnel and a further trailer as a fairground organ which would disguise the generator. It was a difficult and hard year. Two new cart trailers had to be built to start with. Ed Thorne volunteered to convert our tractor to a traction engine at his house.
The Club was delighted when it saw the tractor unit for the first time towards the end cart building. It really did look like a traction engine, complete with rotating spoked flywheel and moving belt! We were lined up in Parkway for the start of the Bridgwater Carnival, creating a lot of interest with our entry and we started to pull out...
DISASTER!
The front turntable pin was not properly secured and dropped out. We continued to pull the front axial and turntable unit completely away from the leading cart and the front crashed down onto the road. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it looked like we were not going to take part in the Carnival. However in true ‘Gremlin fashion’ the Club rallied round. A spectator who lived nearby said he had a welding set and promptly ran off for it. Another spectator said he had a JCB further up the line, to lift the front of the cart. All the while the procession was passing us by. The front of the cart was lifted; the turntable, with some effort, was dragged back under and the pin reinserted and welded-off. Miraculously a pair of old curtains appeared to camouflage the damage to the front. We were ready, but unfortunately the last cart had already passed. We moved off fast to catch the end of the procession. (We’ve done that before). We made it and the atmosphere was electric.
With these 4 units and the energetic circus atmosphere created by the members, the Club ‘swept-the-board’, winning Bridgwater and the remaining 6 carnivals. The Club was truly on top. Although wining everywhere, one of the results was a joint-first and we failed to get the overall ‘Starkey’ County Cup, which went to a Tableau. (It must have been a fix). As a side note, the turntable pin was replaced and the original was cleaned, lacquered and mounted, to form the Club’s annual ‘Cock-up’ cup.
In 1984, Gremlins presented ‘Alpine Puppeteers’. It was a wild, wild year, full of endless parties and incessant drinking. Despite this or probably because of it, we came 3rd at Bridgwater. It no way compared to the outstanding results of the previous year. Picking up 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places around the County was no consolation.
It felt like we were about to drift. We did.
1985 saw the ‘World of Pantomime’ which produced a 7th place in Bridgwater (Sounds familiar). Worse in the County Carnivals; it was a bad cart and a bad year.
1986 gave us ‘Mardi Gras’, nearly a ‘Black and White Minstrel’ idea. We attained a lowly 6th place in Bridgwater, but the results got better around the County and we achieved 3rd place County features. However, this did not make up for the Bridgwater result.
1987 with ‘Parade of the Matadors’, the club was going to show Marketeers how to do ‘Perspex’. It was a very, very difficult and time consuming cart to build. We did not show anybody. We came 6th.
Gremlins would not try to build the way other clubs build, again.
50 Years Ago to Present Times. Part 3 of 3: 1988 to Present Times. " The Golden Era"
In early 1988 Gremlins moved their cart to build at Bristol Road, onto land the Club had just purchased from the Carnival Committee as ‘insurance for emergencies’. It was one of the best decisions the Club had made and without doubt, the major factor in the success to come.
Gremlins were again in the wilderness. In the previous 3 years the Club had only achieved a 7th place and two 6ths, familiar old territory. Ramblers were the dominant force in Bridgwater. They had won the previous two years carnivals. Although dubbed ‘The Golden Era’, the start was certainly not golden.
1988 was probably the most difficult year the Club had experienced. They had undertaken to purchase a barn (shed) located on the Mendips, dismantle it and transport it back to Bridgwater, make it higher, re-erect it, fit large doors, clad in the ends and sides and then build the cart to the theme of ‘Cowboys’; as well as competing in the concerts. They undertook these tasks with passion, knowing they all had to ‘lend a hand’.
Early in 1988, Dinger Bell was made Captain and along with the new Chairman Anf Richards, they guided the Club through this challenging year. The results were not unexpected; 4th place on stage with a 7th place on the road. It was a small wonder we got a cart out at all! Ramblers won Bridgwater again. Dinger and Anf would remain together for the next 3 years, forming the Club into the success story it is today. Anf went on to be our Chairman for the next six consecutive years making seven in all. A great achievement!
After finishing with ‘Electric Cowboys’, we approached 1989 with enthusiasm. The theme would be Christmas and the cart would have four giant snowmen, each carrying two lanterns, one on each arm. The arms and the lanterns would move up and down and each lantern would carry a small child clothed in a Santa outfit. During construction, many members of the Club became concerned that the children could become harmed if the mechanism failed and the lanterns came crashing down. I was designing the moving parts in those days and the fears were reduced, when I stated that I would be putting my own daughter Victoria in one of the lanterns and I would not be doing that if I believed it was unsafe. The cart was completed and when we stood and looked back, we truly believed it was a winning entry. The stage show that year was very good and we also believed we could win that as well. But we did not win the Bridgwater Carnival; we came second. It was won by Ramblers, who extended their wins to 4 in a row; a feat that was said, “Will never be beaten!”
On the stage we came 4th. Coming second on the road was good, considering the results of the previous 4 years. But celebrations that night were muted; we must have been ‘robbed’. We still believed we had the winning cart. And so it was proven. On the County circuit we won 5 of the remaining 6 carnivals, coming 2nd at Glastonbury. (At least it wasn’t North Petherton) This result gave us the ‘Starkey’ Championship cup jointly shared with Pentathlon CC. The lantern movement was effective and did not fail. Some of the children who were in the lanterns are members today; Mike Bell, ‘Reg’ Redman, and ‘Tori’ Squire.
We were back!
But the euphoria did not last into the following 1990 Carnival with ‘Fiesta Mexicana’. In true ‘Yo-Yo’ fashion, we were placed 4th. This was tempered a little, by coming 2nd on stage. We fared even worse around the County, only picking up a 4th at Glastonbury. This time we did not panic. We knew we had the experience, talent, resource and now the facilities in the Club to do better.
Our theme for 1991 was Space, a theme we had successfully done in 1978 with ‘Galactic Guardians’, and in 1963 with ‘Visit of the Troggs’. The idea required a raised chassis, 6 feet off the ground, an engineering feat in itself. The cart would consist of 4 robotic machines on legs. The legs would move and the machines appear to ‘walk’. The entry would be titled ‘Star Fighters’. With this entry, Gremlins nearly swept the board, only losing out at North Petherton, (where else?) where we lost the movement of one leg and were dropped to 4th. (Did the loss of one leg really merit 4th place?) This result cost us the overall county championship and we won the Midsomer Norton Cup for best feature. With 6 firsts there was much celebration. This was a brilliant achievement, which made a great memorable year.
We were back on top and a greater achievement was to follow.
From the loss at North Petherton the Club went on to consecutively win the next 27 carnivals covering ‘Star Fighters’, ‘Minstrel Melody’, ‘Morning of the Dragon’ ‘Redskins’ and ‘Pirates’, the wins finishing at North Petherton (where else?) in 1995. This feat has yet to be beaten. Despite coming 3rd at North Petherton, we won four of the remaining five carnivals and picked up a second place in the other. Another very successful year! Since ‘Star Fighters’ we have won Bridgwater 22 times out of 27. (Data correct following the 2018 season - ED)
In the same period we have won the ‘Double’ (Bridgwater Stage and Road) Five times: in 2004 with ‘Rio’, 2007 with ‘Vampires’ winning the ‘White Hart’, the ‘Ker’ and the ‘Hardy Spicer Championship Cup and 2010 with ‘Wild Bill’s Runaway Train’, where we won every major trophy including the ‘White Hart’, the ‘Ker’, the ‘Hardy Spicer Championship Cup’, the ‘Midsomer Norton County Cup’ for best feature and the overall County Championship Cup, the ‘Starkey’. 2012, winning every major trophy, sharing the "Starkey" with Gemini CC. And most recently in 2014, winning every major cup, but again sharing the "Starkey" this time With Huckyduck CC.
A mention must be made here of our 2006 entry ‘Ghost Ship’. An entry many believe to be the best Bridgwater has seen. The idea was put forward by Dinger Bell and his son Tom would be Captain, responsible for the cart build. Dinger would be continually ‘battling’ with the Club over one thing. Not the near insurmountable heavy engineering problems of making the whole cart, built as a sailing ship, sway from side to side, but over the colour. From the beginning, the cart would be an off-white, ivory colour. All the costumes would be ivory and the lights would be all white. The Club was getting ‘cold-feet’. I remember many-a-meeting when members wanted to introduce more colour. Dinger was having none of it. He would repeatedly ask the Club to ‘hold its nerve’. It did. The finished cart with its graceful swaying ship, giant skeletons, haunting music and of course, the all ivory ghostly colour, was spectacular. Members who went on the cart always gave everything. The choreography was as ever, effective and demanding. The Club had a reputation for ‘working-the-cart’, this year was no exception. It won all seven carnivals. A brilliant year!
Another brilliant year was 2009 with ‘Joust’. The cart would consist of a giant dragon flanked by full-scale knights on chargers. During cart building I would pass mountains of cut MDF discs. “What are these for”, I asked. “Don’t know”, was the reply, “I’ve just been asked to cut them”. Members would always carry out what was asked of them by the captain and those in charge, always trusting they knew what they were doing. They always did. The discs turned out to be the dragon scales. It was decided that the dragon would breathe fire! Mike Bell was asked to come up with a system that would not set the cart on fire. We knew that if we just started ‘flame throwing’ during the procession, we would be disqualified. So we contacted the Carnival Committee who came down to the shed to have a look. We showed them the process, the fire precautions, extra fire extinguishers and told them that we would not use it when facing the crowd. It worked brilliantly. They gave us the green light. Although a lot of effort was spent on this system, for what was a small detail in the overall scheme of things, it was felt that this attention to detail made the difference between winning and taking part.
And we did win. Big time. We won all seven Carnivals and came 2nd on stage!
The Club did even better in the following year (2010), a seemingly impossible task, with ‘Wild Bill’s Runaway Train’. The cart depicted a floating and ‘snaking’ train and carriages. The moving train idea was unsuccessfully tried 50 years previously. It took this amount of time to get it right. We won the stage, winning the ‘White Hart’ cup, the Road taking the ‘Ker’ and the ‘Hardy Spicer’ championship cup. Around the County, we won all the carnivals and took every major county cup. It was the most successful year ever; in terms of wins and major trophies.
With ‘Jungle Drums’, we were almost as successful. We just lost out on the stage coming 2nd, but did win all the carnivals and took every major county cup. (There was no North Petherton carnival that year, due to a bad motorway accident the previous night during Bridgwater carnival).
You may now see why this period has been dubbed ‘The Golden Era’.
It was during this period that women became full members of the Club. Not before time and despite our main rivals still holding out (even to the present day) for male full membership only. Looking back, I cannot understand why we did not embrace this much earlier. They brought a more stabilising environment and were another large factor in our continued success, especially for the concerts, where we are now a major force.
We had 4 headquarters during this period. We started this era at The Newmarket Hotel and moved to the Snooker Club in George Street in 1991. It was owned by Rodney and his family firm. We were there for 6 years achieving first place in Bridgwater every year and gaining our feat of 27 consecutive wins. This was a very successful period.
With Rodney finishing at the Snooker Club, we moved to the Cellophane Club and continued to dominate Bridgwater Carnival. We were there for 14 years finishing with 7 consecutive Bridgwater wins.
The age 2000 to 2010 saw the Clubs affairs run by Chairman, Phil Brockbank for a period of 10 years. This term was broken by a year-off in 2004. He saw the Club win Bridgwater, 9 times. Another memorable feat.
In 2011 we moved to Bar 27, in St Mary Street, our current Headquarters and continued with our winning run, making it 9 wins in a row.
Through this period from 1988, Gremlins began to be known as the ‘Family Club’; with many members’ children joining and membership ranging from youngsters to grandfathers. (Great-grandfather in Ed’s case.) This period also saw the end of the tag, ‘Cart Club’ with the stage show getting equal priority. The Club would endeavour to win both concert and road.
Since the Club first won the Bridgwater Carnival back in 1971, Gremlins have taken part in all 357 county carnivals, winning 159 times (44.5%) and being in the top 3 positions on 267 occasions (74.8%) (Data correct as of 20/11/2023 - Ed).
Gremlins Carnival Club is probably the most successful club of all time and the best Carnival Club ever.
Gremlins were again in the wilderness. In the previous 3 years the Club had only achieved a 7th place and two 6ths, familiar old territory. Ramblers were the dominant force in Bridgwater. They had won the previous two years carnivals. Although dubbed ‘The Golden Era’, the start was certainly not golden.
1988 was probably the most difficult year the Club had experienced. They had undertaken to purchase a barn (shed) located on the Mendips, dismantle it and transport it back to Bridgwater, make it higher, re-erect it, fit large doors, clad in the ends and sides and then build the cart to the theme of ‘Cowboys’; as well as competing in the concerts. They undertook these tasks with passion, knowing they all had to ‘lend a hand’.
Early in 1988, Dinger Bell was made Captain and along with the new Chairman Anf Richards, they guided the Club through this challenging year. The results were not unexpected; 4th place on stage with a 7th place on the road. It was a small wonder we got a cart out at all! Ramblers won Bridgwater again. Dinger and Anf would remain together for the next 3 years, forming the Club into the success story it is today. Anf went on to be our Chairman for the next six consecutive years making seven in all. A great achievement!
After finishing with ‘Electric Cowboys’, we approached 1989 with enthusiasm. The theme would be Christmas and the cart would have four giant snowmen, each carrying two lanterns, one on each arm. The arms and the lanterns would move up and down and each lantern would carry a small child clothed in a Santa outfit. During construction, many members of the Club became concerned that the children could become harmed if the mechanism failed and the lanterns came crashing down. I was designing the moving parts in those days and the fears were reduced, when I stated that I would be putting my own daughter Victoria in one of the lanterns and I would not be doing that if I believed it was unsafe. The cart was completed and when we stood and looked back, we truly believed it was a winning entry. The stage show that year was very good and we also believed we could win that as well. But we did not win the Bridgwater Carnival; we came second. It was won by Ramblers, who extended their wins to 4 in a row; a feat that was said, “Will never be beaten!”
On the stage we came 4th. Coming second on the road was good, considering the results of the previous 4 years. But celebrations that night were muted; we must have been ‘robbed’. We still believed we had the winning cart. And so it was proven. On the County circuit we won 5 of the remaining 6 carnivals, coming 2nd at Glastonbury. (At least it wasn’t North Petherton) This result gave us the ‘Starkey’ Championship cup jointly shared with Pentathlon CC. The lantern movement was effective and did not fail. Some of the children who were in the lanterns are members today; Mike Bell, ‘Reg’ Redman, and ‘Tori’ Squire.
We were back!
But the euphoria did not last into the following 1990 Carnival with ‘Fiesta Mexicana’. In true ‘Yo-Yo’ fashion, we were placed 4th. This was tempered a little, by coming 2nd on stage. We fared even worse around the County, only picking up a 4th at Glastonbury. This time we did not panic. We knew we had the experience, talent, resource and now the facilities in the Club to do better.
Our theme for 1991 was Space, a theme we had successfully done in 1978 with ‘Galactic Guardians’, and in 1963 with ‘Visit of the Troggs’. The idea required a raised chassis, 6 feet off the ground, an engineering feat in itself. The cart would consist of 4 robotic machines on legs. The legs would move and the machines appear to ‘walk’. The entry would be titled ‘Star Fighters’. With this entry, Gremlins nearly swept the board, only losing out at North Petherton, (where else?) where we lost the movement of one leg and were dropped to 4th. (Did the loss of one leg really merit 4th place?) This result cost us the overall county championship and we won the Midsomer Norton Cup for best feature. With 6 firsts there was much celebration. This was a brilliant achievement, which made a great memorable year.
We were back on top and a greater achievement was to follow.
From the loss at North Petherton the Club went on to consecutively win the next 27 carnivals covering ‘Star Fighters’, ‘Minstrel Melody’, ‘Morning of the Dragon’ ‘Redskins’ and ‘Pirates’, the wins finishing at North Petherton (where else?) in 1995. This feat has yet to be beaten. Despite coming 3rd at North Petherton, we won four of the remaining five carnivals and picked up a second place in the other. Another very successful year! Since ‘Star Fighters’ we have won Bridgwater 22 times out of 27. (Data correct following the 2018 season - ED)
In the same period we have won the ‘Double’ (Bridgwater Stage and Road) Five times: in 2004 with ‘Rio’, 2007 with ‘Vampires’ winning the ‘White Hart’, the ‘Ker’ and the ‘Hardy Spicer Championship Cup and 2010 with ‘Wild Bill’s Runaway Train’, where we won every major trophy including the ‘White Hart’, the ‘Ker’, the ‘Hardy Spicer Championship Cup’, the ‘Midsomer Norton County Cup’ for best feature and the overall County Championship Cup, the ‘Starkey’. 2012, winning every major trophy, sharing the "Starkey" with Gemini CC. And most recently in 2014, winning every major cup, but again sharing the "Starkey" this time With Huckyduck CC.
A mention must be made here of our 2006 entry ‘Ghost Ship’. An entry many believe to be the best Bridgwater has seen. The idea was put forward by Dinger Bell and his son Tom would be Captain, responsible for the cart build. Dinger would be continually ‘battling’ with the Club over one thing. Not the near insurmountable heavy engineering problems of making the whole cart, built as a sailing ship, sway from side to side, but over the colour. From the beginning, the cart would be an off-white, ivory colour. All the costumes would be ivory and the lights would be all white. The Club was getting ‘cold-feet’. I remember many-a-meeting when members wanted to introduce more colour. Dinger was having none of it. He would repeatedly ask the Club to ‘hold its nerve’. It did. The finished cart with its graceful swaying ship, giant skeletons, haunting music and of course, the all ivory ghostly colour, was spectacular. Members who went on the cart always gave everything. The choreography was as ever, effective and demanding. The Club had a reputation for ‘working-the-cart’, this year was no exception. It won all seven carnivals. A brilliant year!
Another brilliant year was 2009 with ‘Joust’. The cart would consist of a giant dragon flanked by full-scale knights on chargers. During cart building I would pass mountains of cut MDF discs. “What are these for”, I asked. “Don’t know”, was the reply, “I’ve just been asked to cut them”. Members would always carry out what was asked of them by the captain and those in charge, always trusting they knew what they were doing. They always did. The discs turned out to be the dragon scales. It was decided that the dragon would breathe fire! Mike Bell was asked to come up with a system that would not set the cart on fire. We knew that if we just started ‘flame throwing’ during the procession, we would be disqualified. So we contacted the Carnival Committee who came down to the shed to have a look. We showed them the process, the fire precautions, extra fire extinguishers and told them that we would not use it when facing the crowd. It worked brilliantly. They gave us the green light. Although a lot of effort was spent on this system, for what was a small detail in the overall scheme of things, it was felt that this attention to detail made the difference between winning and taking part.
And we did win. Big time. We won all seven Carnivals and came 2nd on stage!
The Club did even better in the following year (2010), a seemingly impossible task, with ‘Wild Bill’s Runaway Train’. The cart depicted a floating and ‘snaking’ train and carriages. The moving train idea was unsuccessfully tried 50 years previously. It took this amount of time to get it right. We won the stage, winning the ‘White Hart’ cup, the Road taking the ‘Ker’ and the ‘Hardy Spicer’ championship cup. Around the County, we won all the carnivals and took every major county cup. It was the most successful year ever; in terms of wins and major trophies.
With ‘Jungle Drums’, we were almost as successful. We just lost out on the stage coming 2nd, but did win all the carnivals and took every major county cup. (There was no North Petherton carnival that year, due to a bad motorway accident the previous night during Bridgwater carnival).
You may now see why this period has been dubbed ‘The Golden Era’.
It was during this period that women became full members of the Club. Not before time and despite our main rivals still holding out (even to the present day) for male full membership only. Looking back, I cannot understand why we did not embrace this much earlier. They brought a more stabilising environment and were another large factor in our continued success, especially for the concerts, where we are now a major force.
We had 4 headquarters during this period. We started this era at The Newmarket Hotel and moved to the Snooker Club in George Street in 1991. It was owned by Rodney and his family firm. We were there for 6 years achieving first place in Bridgwater every year and gaining our feat of 27 consecutive wins. This was a very successful period.
With Rodney finishing at the Snooker Club, we moved to the Cellophane Club and continued to dominate Bridgwater Carnival. We were there for 14 years finishing with 7 consecutive Bridgwater wins.
The age 2000 to 2010 saw the Clubs affairs run by Chairman, Phil Brockbank for a period of 10 years. This term was broken by a year-off in 2004. He saw the Club win Bridgwater, 9 times. Another memorable feat.
In 2011 we moved to Bar 27, in St Mary Street, our current Headquarters and continued with our winning run, making it 9 wins in a row.
Through this period from 1988, Gremlins began to be known as the ‘Family Club’; with many members’ children joining and membership ranging from youngsters to grandfathers. (Great-grandfather in Ed’s case.) This period also saw the end of the tag, ‘Cart Club’ with the stage show getting equal priority. The Club would endeavour to win both concert and road.
Since the Club first won the Bridgwater Carnival back in 1971, Gremlins have taken part in all 357 county carnivals, winning 159 times (44.5%) and being in the top 3 positions on 267 occasions (74.8%) (Data correct as of 20/11/2023 - Ed).
Gremlins Carnival Club is probably the most successful club of all time and the best Carnival Club ever.
Cart Building and Travelling
Our Cart in the early days up to 1971 was a large flat top trailer approximately 38’ long x 11’ wide. (12M x 3.4M) and was stored outside in one of farmer Rex Roe’s fields in Bower Lane during the winter (plus spring and summer come to that!) and would be built out in the open with no protection during the three and a half week period between concert and road. All the Club’s wood, cart sideboards and spare materials would have been lashed to the top and covered over with tarpaulins.
The wood would have been ‘de-nailed and saved on dismantling. This would include every length over 18” (0.5M) long, with even the nails straightened and saved. There were no screws used in those days. (It’s a bit different now!)
There would have been no decking on the cart and the first job would be to hire planks from Hooper’s wood yard to ‘deck the cart’. This would be carried out in September. Heavy steel angle brackets would be utilised every year to bolt or coach-bolt the wooden uprights to the deck. A trailer-load of off-cuts of Coates’s fencing would be obtained to supplement the stock of wood.
In 1967 we had moved our cart-building plot to an area of ground behind Penzoy Avenue. We were there on the first night cart building, when a man appeared with a bottle of whiskey. (Always a good sign!) His house backed on to the plot. It was Reg Butt, who wanted to help. He left that night leaving us the bottle. He helped us tremendously over the years, quickly becoming a valued Vice President. His only stipulation was that we should endeavour to beat Marketeers. That was because his brother Arthur was also a Vice President; a Vice President of Marketeers! There was an intense rivalry between both of them. We did our best. My lasting impressions of building at Penzoy, was Reg coming out to us practically every night, with a tray of tea and coffee and of course the inevitable shot of whiskey. When we left Penzoy after 5 years, Reg would always offer a welcomed tipple, especially on the circuit. A lasting legacy is the Club’s Reg Butt Cup.
Building in the open brought its problems with the weather. Storms would wash away plastering of models and scenery. Paint would be washed off or never dry. I can remember many-a-night sheltering under the cart to keep dry, as storms lashed the site. Hard frosts were another problem. Coloured lamps were very expensive and generally not used. Instead, pearl lamps were dipped in a colour lacquer called ‘Tintalite’. Strings of lamps would be lit up to get warm and then somebody would move down the line with a pint mug full of 'tantalite’, dipping each lamp in turn. Somebody else would follow, wiping off the small bead of liquid that would form on the lamp. In damp weather we would not get very good results. An alternative (as we lived in Bridgwater) was to wrap the lamps in pre-cut squares of coloured ‘Cellophane’. Another activity that I have just been reminded of was ‘fossing’. ‘Foss’ was the trade-name of an ‘Evostic’ type adhesive that we used for papering the ‘chicken-wire’ frames of models. (Remember this was pre fibre-glass days.) We used gallons and gallons of the stuff, getting a ‘high’ on the fumes. The Foss was donated by BRS. The use of steel structures on carts was in its infancy and welding on carnival cart construction was practically unheard of. This changed rapidly, with Gremlins at the fore with Ed Thorne’s portable welding set and his expertise. He was soon in demand from clubs throughout carnival.
The 1971 entry ‘Carnival Tijuana Style’ was being built next to Will’s factory in Salmon Parade and a couple of days before the carnival, a shelter was constructed, which consisted of a rope line erected at high level through the cart and polythene sheeting, (courtesy of Ed Thorne and Cellophane) draped over it, forming a giant ‘tent’. Luxury! This cart with its dropped sides and no platform as such, gave Gremlins their first Bridgwater win and we would never go back to the traditional flat decked cart again. Innovative ideas on cart building in the future would see Gremlins push Carnival to the levels we see today. In those early days, only the cart was decorated. It would be towed by a tractor lent by Rex Roe and would also pull a 171/2 kW hired generator. Owning our own tractor and generator was still to come.
When the Club did purchase their first generator, a 271/2 kW unit, complete with trailer and costing £430 (a great deal of money in those days), a statement at the time, made by our Club electrician, Johnny Reakes, was that ‘we would never need anything bigger’. John has been reminded of this statement many, many times over the years as the drive for more and more lights has meant our generators are now in excess of 1000kW. He has always responded with good humour. This drive towards more power may now have peaked, with the advent of low energy lamps and LED’s. Let’s hope so.
The ‘starting-up’ (swinging by hand) of our first generator, was always difficult. This was overcome by extending the starting handle to approximately 5 feet, which allowed 5 or 6 people to swing it (3 each side). By spraying a can of ‘easy start’ into the air intake at the same time, starting was a lot easier. It’s much different now where just by pressing a button 1000kW bursts into life!
A decision was made to purchase our own tractor and new generator trailer to add to the generator. It was done so in the ‘Gremlin’ way. The tractor was a Fordson Major, fitted with a larger 6 cylinder engine and the generator trailer utilised an ex ‘British Road Services’ lorry. They were renovated, painted in ‘Gremlin green’ and carried the club logo. They looked very smart. A good example of this can be seen in some of the photographs of the ‘Galactic Guardians’ entry. This combination did not last long as Gremlins, making a ‘rod for its own back’, pioneered the decorated tractor and generator.
Owning the generator brought its own problems. Although upgraded a few times to approximately 180 kW, older generators of the type we could afford were getting very large and heavy. It was decided to go back to hiring. Modern generators were a lot lighter. While being lighter, the drive towards more power meant that they were getting bigger and heavier. Generator trailers needed to be substantially stronger. This culminated 3 or 4 years ago in a combined generator and trailer weight of approximately 25 tons. Things had to change and the drive altered to finding lighter generators, especially in the light of new rules, limiting the combined weight of tractor, cart and generator to 50 tonnes.
In 1974 we started to build at Bartletts on Colley Lane and did not like building in the open. Along with other clubs, we erected a scaffold and tarpaulin enclosure. This became the norm in the following years and we began to own our own scaffold, clips and covers. The enclosures came with their own problems. High winds, which were normal for that time of year, buffeted the structure mercilessly. A dedicated team was formed, led by Martyn Blackmore, whose sole job was to keep it all together. On many a night he and his team would be seen lying flat on top of the sheeting, rising and falling as it flapped in the wind, to stop it blowing off whilst trying to tie it down.
The 1978 cart, ‘Galactic Guardians’ was being built in the dry, inside one of the new Bartlett warehouses that were being erected. It was pure bliss. It was the last weekend before Carnival and the entry had to be moved within the warehouse to enable more storage for Bartletts. It was the first time any club had built an entry without the use of the traditional cart chassis. The front turntable was turned through 90 degrees, and using the tractor, towed towards the wall.
DISASTER!
The ‘Spaceship’ rocked and twisted seriously on the front axle as it was being moved. It could not take part in the procession in that state. A frantic review took place and it was decided to build a new turntable with twin axles, to give the front stability when turned. It worked. We won. All our future carts adopted the twin axle and this idea was utilised on big carts throughout carnival. We had to leave Bartletts and ‘Galactic Guardians’ was the last of our carts to be built at Colley Lane.
The following year 1979, we entered the Glen Miller theme and the cart was built on temporary land adjacent to the old Railway Hotel, next to our headquarters at the ‘Railway Club’.
The year after that (1980), we moved the cart to Wilstock Farm (Rex Roe’s new farm) at Rhode lane. Rex bought a large concrete structured shed at East Quay, which was dismantled by the Club, transported to the farm and re-erected. This probably gave us the confidence 8 years later, to buy our own barn from the Mendips. We had restricted use of the new shed after harvesting, but we could build in the dry; heaven! But there were some problems. More complex carts meant that more time was needed to build. With more and more members using cars, the site was getting muddier and muddier. We were ‘up to our eyeballs’ in mud. We would take all day getting the cart off-site down the narrow lane. The bottom of the cart could not be built to the full 11’ width until we were out onto the main road.
Although we had a good 8 years at the farm, for which we are very grateful to Rex, we needed to be able to work on the cart throughout the year. So a decision was made to move to Bristol Road onto the land we had just bought from the Carnival Committee as ‘insurance’.
It was 1988 and it would be a hard year.
We scoured the adverts and bought a large barn on the Mendips as it stood, with open sides. It was mid-winter and luckily there was no snow. A coach and tractors and trailers (ex Circus carts, which we had sold/given to Rex) were arranged. A full club turnout was required and there was an excellent response. The barn would be dismantled in one day! The dismantled barn was transported back to Bridgwater and erection at Bristol Road began.
DISASTER! We have a lot of these moments.
We had erected all the uprights with some roof crossbeams. They were not ‘tied in’, but were ‘roped-off’ to the ground. We left for the night. During the night, there was a heavy storm with very high winds. The structure blew down. We had to straighten the steelwork and start again. The barn was lengthened with new roof beams built and the sides clad with new and second-hand sheeting. Large new doors were constructed and erected. The shed was completed and we could start on building our 1988 entry, ‘Electric Cowboys’. Understandably, it was not a great success.
Over the years, the shed has been extended sideways, nearly trebling in size enabling the generator unit to be built under cover and the extra lorry unit stored. 240v & 415v electrical supplies and extensive lighting were added. Equipment installed such as lathes, drills, saws, mills, grinders, welding equipment and air compressors. Facilities were also added such as sinks, hot and cold water, radio/television/microwave ovens/kettles, fire precautions and emergency exits.
Extending the shed was not easy. The major problem being there was no land to extend onto. The carnival plots were on reclaimed land that was formally the old S & D (Somerset and Dorset) railway embankment. We had bought the end plot nearest the main railway lines and butting up against a part embankment that once supported the bridge foundations that would carry the old line across the main tracks. It was a massive mound and its removal was way beyond the scope of any carnival club. It would require heavy finance and expertise.
To extend the shed, we needed the land, so the mound had to be moved, although there was not much ‘we’ involved. The mound removal was undertaken by Rodney and his brothers, his firm (R S Cook and Sons), heavy earth moving equipment, JCBs and their expertise.
It was a massive undertaking carried out over the years at no expense to the Club. Owning our own shed with access all year around was undoubtedly one of the factors in our great success in the 30 years following ‘Electric Cowboys’. This era dubbed ‘The Golden Era’ still continues.
‘Travelling’, the term used for getting the cart from Carnival to Carnival, also brought its own problems. We board the coaches to take us to the ‘outside’ carnivals and ‘take for granted’, that the cart will be lined-up in procession waiting for us. It always is of course, the now dedicated road-crew safely taking the cart from carnival to carnival without incident. It wasn’t always without mishap.
On leaving Penzoy Avenue on one carnival, we brought down power-cables complete with bracket and brickwork attached to the corner of a house. We could look straight into the bedroom! On another occasion leaving Colley Lane, we propped bare power cables, they touched and ‘flash-bang’, half of Bridgwater was plunged into darkness. We quickly moved on.
Travelling with the cart from Bridgwater to Shepton Mallet was a major operation. Half the club was needed and we would leave early on Wednesday morning (carnival day) and rendezvous with other clubs at lunchtime in a pub at the foot of Pilton hill. We would await the arrival of powerful tractors, supplied by Shepton Mallet Carnival Committee, to pull us up the hill. After a good meal, this would turn into a typical carnival drinking session. (Was this the reason there were no shortage of volunteers?) The journey would take all day.
One particular year was very bad for road incidents. We had over a dozen run-ins with cars, most of them swiped off the road whilst trying to overtake. Some clown had painted little crossed-out cars on the generator-trailer in the manor of shot-down ‘planes in WW2. We never did find out who it was. That same year, the cart jack-knifed in Glastonbury, pushed a car onto its side, headed for a shop window and we nearly ended up shopping in Tescos! The driver, the late Ray Sellick, father of Roy and Steve, was nicknamed Evel Knievel. On a serious note, we were grateful for the help Ray gave us over the years.
In 2002 the Club made a big decision and changed their tractor to a lorry/tractor unit from an articulated lorry. This was not unique to the Gremlins and was pioneered by other clubs and pressed by the police via the VSO meetings. The tractor unit was extensively modified by Paul Marsh; the cab was cut-off and done away with and the controls moved to the very front with the driver sitting central and low. The engine was located low down behind the driver and had a ridiculously short prop’ shaft. A larger and heavier base/towing unit, meant that spectacular cart fronts could be (and were) built.
In the early days there was no height restriction and we built high! I can remember stepping over cables as we moved past. (How anyone saw us up there, I’ll never know – but we learnt). When the height restriction came in at 17’6”and recently reduced still further, it made travelling far, far easier.
We sometimes forget the efforts of the road crew in getting the cart from Carnival to Carnival and the effort of the members who go to each procession’s line-up, to prepare the cart for the evening’s Carnival. We arrive, get on a pristine, lit cart, do our bit and win!
The wood would have been ‘de-nailed and saved on dismantling. This would include every length over 18” (0.5M) long, with even the nails straightened and saved. There were no screws used in those days. (It’s a bit different now!)
There would have been no decking on the cart and the first job would be to hire planks from Hooper’s wood yard to ‘deck the cart’. This would be carried out in September. Heavy steel angle brackets would be utilised every year to bolt or coach-bolt the wooden uprights to the deck. A trailer-load of off-cuts of Coates’s fencing would be obtained to supplement the stock of wood.
In 1967 we had moved our cart-building plot to an area of ground behind Penzoy Avenue. We were there on the first night cart building, when a man appeared with a bottle of whiskey. (Always a good sign!) His house backed on to the plot. It was Reg Butt, who wanted to help. He left that night leaving us the bottle. He helped us tremendously over the years, quickly becoming a valued Vice President. His only stipulation was that we should endeavour to beat Marketeers. That was because his brother Arthur was also a Vice President; a Vice President of Marketeers! There was an intense rivalry between both of them. We did our best. My lasting impressions of building at Penzoy, was Reg coming out to us practically every night, with a tray of tea and coffee and of course the inevitable shot of whiskey. When we left Penzoy after 5 years, Reg would always offer a welcomed tipple, especially on the circuit. A lasting legacy is the Club’s Reg Butt Cup.
Building in the open brought its problems with the weather. Storms would wash away plastering of models and scenery. Paint would be washed off or never dry. I can remember many-a-night sheltering under the cart to keep dry, as storms lashed the site. Hard frosts were another problem. Coloured lamps were very expensive and generally not used. Instead, pearl lamps were dipped in a colour lacquer called ‘Tintalite’. Strings of lamps would be lit up to get warm and then somebody would move down the line with a pint mug full of 'tantalite’, dipping each lamp in turn. Somebody else would follow, wiping off the small bead of liquid that would form on the lamp. In damp weather we would not get very good results. An alternative (as we lived in Bridgwater) was to wrap the lamps in pre-cut squares of coloured ‘Cellophane’. Another activity that I have just been reminded of was ‘fossing’. ‘Foss’ was the trade-name of an ‘Evostic’ type adhesive that we used for papering the ‘chicken-wire’ frames of models. (Remember this was pre fibre-glass days.) We used gallons and gallons of the stuff, getting a ‘high’ on the fumes. The Foss was donated by BRS. The use of steel structures on carts was in its infancy and welding on carnival cart construction was practically unheard of. This changed rapidly, with Gremlins at the fore with Ed Thorne’s portable welding set and his expertise. He was soon in demand from clubs throughout carnival.
The 1971 entry ‘Carnival Tijuana Style’ was being built next to Will’s factory in Salmon Parade and a couple of days before the carnival, a shelter was constructed, which consisted of a rope line erected at high level through the cart and polythene sheeting, (courtesy of Ed Thorne and Cellophane) draped over it, forming a giant ‘tent’. Luxury! This cart with its dropped sides and no platform as such, gave Gremlins their first Bridgwater win and we would never go back to the traditional flat decked cart again. Innovative ideas on cart building in the future would see Gremlins push Carnival to the levels we see today. In those early days, only the cart was decorated. It would be towed by a tractor lent by Rex Roe and would also pull a 171/2 kW hired generator. Owning our own tractor and generator was still to come.
When the Club did purchase their first generator, a 271/2 kW unit, complete with trailer and costing £430 (a great deal of money in those days), a statement at the time, made by our Club electrician, Johnny Reakes, was that ‘we would never need anything bigger’. John has been reminded of this statement many, many times over the years as the drive for more and more lights has meant our generators are now in excess of 1000kW. He has always responded with good humour. This drive towards more power may now have peaked, with the advent of low energy lamps and LED’s. Let’s hope so.
The ‘starting-up’ (swinging by hand) of our first generator, was always difficult. This was overcome by extending the starting handle to approximately 5 feet, which allowed 5 or 6 people to swing it (3 each side). By spraying a can of ‘easy start’ into the air intake at the same time, starting was a lot easier. It’s much different now where just by pressing a button 1000kW bursts into life!
A decision was made to purchase our own tractor and new generator trailer to add to the generator. It was done so in the ‘Gremlin’ way. The tractor was a Fordson Major, fitted with a larger 6 cylinder engine and the generator trailer utilised an ex ‘British Road Services’ lorry. They were renovated, painted in ‘Gremlin green’ and carried the club logo. They looked very smart. A good example of this can be seen in some of the photographs of the ‘Galactic Guardians’ entry. This combination did not last long as Gremlins, making a ‘rod for its own back’, pioneered the decorated tractor and generator.
Owning the generator brought its own problems. Although upgraded a few times to approximately 180 kW, older generators of the type we could afford were getting very large and heavy. It was decided to go back to hiring. Modern generators were a lot lighter. While being lighter, the drive towards more power meant that they were getting bigger and heavier. Generator trailers needed to be substantially stronger. This culminated 3 or 4 years ago in a combined generator and trailer weight of approximately 25 tons. Things had to change and the drive altered to finding lighter generators, especially in the light of new rules, limiting the combined weight of tractor, cart and generator to 50 tonnes.
In 1974 we started to build at Bartletts on Colley Lane and did not like building in the open. Along with other clubs, we erected a scaffold and tarpaulin enclosure. This became the norm in the following years and we began to own our own scaffold, clips and covers. The enclosures came with their own problems. High winds, which were normal for that time of year, buffeted the structure mercilessly. A dedicated team was formed, led by Martyn Blackmore, whose sole job was to keep it all together. On many a night he and his team would be seen lying flat on top of the sheeting, rising and falling as it flapped in the wind, to stop it blowing off whilst trying to tie it down.
The 1978 cart, ‘Galactic Guardians’ was being built in the dry, inside one of the new Bartlett warehouses that were being erected. It was pure bliss. It was the last weekend before Carnival and the entry had to be moved within the warehouse to enable more storage for Bartletts. It was the first time any club had built an entry without the use of the traditional cart chassis. The front turntable was turned through 90 degrees, and using the tractor, towed towards the wall.
DISASTER!
The ‘Spaceship’ rocked and twisted seriously on the front axle as it was being moved. It could not take part in the procession in that state. A frantic review took place and it was decided to build a new turntable with twin axles, to give the front stability when turned. It worked. We won. All our future carts adopted the twin axle and this idea was utilised on big carts throughout carnival. We had to leave Bartletts and ‘Galactic Guardians’ was the last of our carts to be built at Colley Lane.
The following year 1979, we entered the Glen Miller theme and the cart was built on temporary land adjacent to the old Railway Hotel, next to our headquarters at the ‘Railway Club’.
The year after that (1980), we moved the cart to Wilstock Farm (Rex Roe’s new farm) at Rhode lane. Rex bought a large concrete structured shed at East Quay, which was dismantled by the Club, transported to the farm and re-erected. This probably gave us the confidence 8 years later, to buy our own barn from the Mendips. We had restricted use of the new shed after harvesting, but we could build in the dry; heaven! But there were some problems. More complex carts meant that more time was needed to build. With more and more members using cars, the site was getting muddier and muddier. We were ‘up to our eyeballs’ in mud. We would take all day getting the cart off-site down the narrow lane. The bottom of the cart could not be built to the full 11’ width until we were out onto the main road.
Although we had a good 8 years at the farm, for which we are very grateful to Rex, we needed to be able to work on the cart throughout the year. So a decision was made to move to Bristol Road onto the land we had just bought from the Carnival Committee as ‘insurance’.
It was 1988 and it would be a hard year.
We scoured the adverts and bought a large barn on the Mendips as it stood, with open sides. It was mid-winter and luckily there was no snow. A coach and tractors and trailers (ex Circus carts, which we had sold/given to Rex) were arranged. A full club turnout was required and there was an excellent response. The barn would be dismantled in one day! The dismantled barn was transported back to Bridgwater and erection at Bristol Road began.
DISASTER! We have a lot of these moments.
We had erected all the uprights with some roof crossbeams. They were not ‘tied in’, but were ‘roped-off’ to the ground. We left for the night. During the night, there was a heavy storm with very high winds. The structure blew down. We had to straighten the steelwork and start again. The barn was lengthened with new roof beams built and the sides clad with new and second-hand sheeting. Large new doors were constructed and erected. The shed was completed and we could start on building our 1988 entry, ‘Electric Cowboys’. Understandably, it was not a great success.
Over the years, the shed has been extended sideways, nearly trebling in size enabling the generator unit to be built under cover and the extra lorry unit stored. 240v & 415v electrical supplies and extensive lighting were added. Equipment installed such as lathes, drills, saws, mills, grinders, welding equipment and air compressors. Facilities were also added such as sinks, hot and cold water, radio/television/microwave ovens/kettles, fire precautions and emergency exits.
Extending the shed was not easy. The major problem being there was no land to extend onto. The carnival plots were on reclaimed land that was formally the old S & D (Somerset and Dorset) railway embankment. We had bought the end plot nearest the main railway lines and butting up against a part embankment that once supported the bridge foundations that would carry the old line across the main tracks. It was a massive mound and its removal was way beyond the scope of any carnival club. It would require heavy finance and expertise.
To extend the shed, we needed the land, so the mound had to be moved, although there was not much ‘we’ involved. The mound removal was undertaken by Rodney and his brothers, his firm (R S Cook and Sons), heavy earth moving equipment, JCBs and their expertise.
It was a massive undertaking carried out over the years at no expense to the Club. Owning our own shed with access all year around was undoubtedly one of the factors in our great success in the 30 years following ‘Electric Cowboys’. This era dubbed ‘The Golden Era’ still continues.
‘Travelling’, the term used for getting the cart from Carnival to Carnival, also brought its own problems. We board the coaches to take us to the ‘outside’ carnivals and ‘take for granted’, that the cart will be lined-up in procession waiting for us. It always is of course, the now dedicated road-crew safely taking the cart from carnival to carnival without incident. It wasn’t always without mishap.
On leaving Penzoy Avenue on one carnival, we brought down power-cables complete with bracket and brickwork attached to the corner of a house. We could look straight into the bedroom! On another occasion leaving Colley Lane, we propped bare power cables, they touched and ‘flash-bang’, half of Bridgwater was plunged into darkness. We quickly moved on.
Travelling with the cart from Bridgwater to Shepton Mallet was a major operation. Half the club was needed and we would leave early on Wednesday morning (carnival day) and rendezvous with other clubs at lunchtime in a pub at the foot of Pilton hill. We would await the arrival of powerful tractors, supplied by Shepton Mallet Carnival Committee, to pull us up the hill. After a good meal, this would turn into a typical carnival drinking session. (Was this the reason there were no shortage of volunteers?) The journey would take all day.
One particular year was very bad for road incidents. We had over a dozen run-ins with cars, most of them swiped off the road whilst trying to overtake. Some clown had painted little crossed-out cars on the generator-trailer in the manor of shot-down ‘planes in WW2. We never did find out who it was. That same year, the cart jack-knifed in Glastonbury, pushed a car onto its side, headed for a shop window and we nearly ended up shopping in Tescos! The driver, the late Ray Sellick, father of Roy and Steve, was nicknamed Evel Knievel. On a serious note, we were grateful for the help Ray gave us over the years.
In 2002 the Club made a big decision and changed their tractor to a lorry/tractor unit from an articulated lorry. This was not unique to the Gremlins and was pioneered by other clubs and pressed by the police via the VSO meetings. The tractor unit was extensively modified by Paul Marsh; the cab was cut-off and done away with and the controls moved to the very front with the driver sitting central and low. The engine was located low down behind the driver and had a ridiculously short prop’ shaft. A larger and heavier base/towing unit, meant that spectacular cart fronts could be (and were) built.
In the early days there was no height restriction and we built high! I can remember stepping over cables as we moved past. (How anyone saw us up there, I’ll never know – but we learnt). When the height restriction came in at 17’6”and recently reduced still further, it made travelling far, far easier.
We sometimes forget the efforts of the road crew in getting the cart from Carnival to Carnival and the effort of the members who go to each procession’s line-up, to prepare the cart for the evening’s Carnival. We arrive, get on a pristine, lit cart, do our bit and win!
