Marguerite

Hi Marguerite,

I emigrated to and from OZ to live in Sydney, and now the French Alps.

So we have two things in common; leaving dear old Gt. Yarmouth to live in the southern hemisphere, and having had the pleasure to be associated with Ted Wadbrooke, and his brother Percy of Wadbrooke Brothers fame.

I worked with them in the 60's, and was impressed by their engineering and artistic talent working in Great Yarmouth, Skegness, and Clacton on pleasure beach facilities.

Ted always had a cigarette hanging from his mouth, which seemed to help him come up with solutions to the everyday problems he encountered with the various fairground rides he had been responsible for. He also as you said painted the Swiss Alp scene on the roller coaster at the pleasure beach; no mean feat when you consider the size of the ride, and his having to literally hang from ropes to paint the scene.

Everyone had enormous respect for the brothers, especially Albert Botton and Jimmy Jones of Botton Bros, who worked closely with them. You might also like to know That Ted and Percy designed and created the Veteran cars at the pleasure beach, producing them from scratch. ( I'm not sure but I think these were later transferred to Joyland near the Brit Pier).

Ted was the brains/artist behind Wadbrook Brothers creations, and Percy complemented him with his engineering skills. They were both literally on-call for fairground ride repairs up and down the east coast, but were Yarmouth based, and really nice people to work for.

It's a shame I'm not in Yarmouth now, as your query about the Yarmouth Mercury maybe having demolition records of your house next to the fish shop, could be researched via Great Yarmouth library, who hold original copies of The Mercury of 1964, and earlier if required. It's probably a long shot, but worth a try to see if there exist any photos of St Nicholas road at the time. There are certainly photos of the 1953 floods in the Station road area...write to them for on-line help perhaps?

Good luck and hope you find what you're looking for,

and G'day from France. (and the Ashes are ours next time!!)

Steve DUNN 7/5/2014

Hi Marguirite

It's glyn

do you have an email ?

mine is glyn [at] glynw******k.com

Hope to hear from you

Glyn

checkout www.thebioscope.com - pictures of Dad and his rides etc...

Glyn

Hello Steve

It was quite a surprise to read your letter - I am Ted Wadbrook's daughter.

Many thanks for all the nice comments you've written about him and his brother. I have to tell you though that you've got his brothers muddled up. The brother who worked alongside Dad was his eldest sibling, Harry and not Percy. They not only built the veteran car ride, the fun house, alpine chairlift and several other rides at the Pleasure Beach and at Barron's amusement arcade along the seafront but did you know that they also built the Scenic Railway (now called the Roller Coaster)? They were sent to France by the then manager of the Pleasure Beach, John Collins, in 1932 and brought back the ride, which was at the Paris Exhibition. They numbered each part before dismantling it and reassembled it in Yarmouth under the guidance of a German gentleman, Mr Heinrich. After that, Ted and Harry went on to build scenic railways at several other locations, the one I remember best was at Barry Island in Wales.

All three brothers passed away many years ago but I am sure Harry and Ted would be so proud to know that their Scenic Railway is still being enjoyed in the 21st century.

I keep in regular contact with my cousin Marguerite, who you replied to and it was her who alerted me to this website. I haven't moved quite so far away from Yarmouth - just over the border into Suffolk!

Kind Regards

Susan

Hello Susan, Thanks for your reply to my reply to Marguerite.

It's funny this confusion, as I distinctly remember working with Ted and Percy (whose wife was Joan, and with whom I socialised often with my cousin John Pengelly and his wife June of The Paradium Amusements on the Golden Mile). I definitely worked with Ted, Percy (not Harry), and Clifford, and actually worked for Wadbrooke Brothers on the chairlift, and the alpine toboggan run in the Paradium (Barrons), and helped on the maintenance of the Roller Coaster at the Pleasure Beach with  bothTed and Percy, and was involved in the production of the veteran cars with them both, in their fibre glass workshop in the Suffolk Road area. We also worked together in Clacton, and Hunstanton. But, I"m sorry to say, I never had the pleasure of meeting Harry. In any case Susan, I'm sure it must give you a buzz to know your Dad (and Percy) were really nice blokes to work for and with...Really happy memories for me§

Best regards,

Steve Dunn French Alps

Hello again Susan,

On reflection I think your Dad's workshop was in the Exmouth Road area, and not Suffolk Road as previously suggested.

Also, it may have been that when I worked with Percy and your Dad, Percy was maybe just helping out. At that time he and Joan were in the process of taking over a pub in Bungay, Suffolk-maybe The Kings Head or something like that.

So perhaps this clarifies our mutual confusion.

Best regards 

Steve Dunn

Hi Steve

Many thanks for getting back. You were right with the Exmouth Road location of the workshop. How I remember the smell of that fibreglass!!

Strange that you didn't know Harry, I wonder where he was working at the time. He eventually became manager of the Pleasure Beach at Skegness then his son Clifford took over from him. Clifford is now retired, his family still live in Skegness and his grandson is keeping up the family tradition and now also works at the Pleasure Beach there.

Percy and Joan ran a pub in Bungay for a while before moving to Malta.

I'll try and download a photo or two of the Veteran Car ride.

Kind regards

Susan