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Carnival is a great tradition in Somerset, originating in Bridgwater as a celebration of the Failure of the famous story that we are all taught at school, the gunpowder Plot and as all traditions like this one makes people smile and come together as friends, the tradition spread throughout the county of Somerset, to the glorious parades that we all know and love.
`The family that founded the Gorgons Carnival Club were members of a Carnival Club based in the old Mendip Hospital in Wells, were a lot of the members of the family worked. They had been members of this club for many years entering in the traditional class of Tableau, where you depict a story by posing as statues on the Carnival float as it moves through the streets of the town hosting the Carnival, however it was hard work and increasingly difficult to keep the very still poses and compete with the larger Bridgwater clubs, so the Carnival club decided they would move on to the more energetic class of feature Carnival floats, where you were able to move about and dance on the float.
However whilst the family members were away on holiday several members changed the design of the float and made it again a tableau entry. When the families returned from holiday they decided they did not enjoy tableau entries and pulled out of the Carnival Club.
As time went by Carnival Day became ever closer, Sue and Mike Ford and Sue`s best friend
Maureen Banford decided that they would like to enter Weston Carnival so they would be able to attend the Carnivals finalé party which was then held in the Winter Gardens in Weston Super Mare, so it was down to the three of them, with the help of Sue`s mum Peggy Reed to decide what they would enter as and make their costumes.
After some discussion they decided to dress a three mythical characters called Gorgons, from Greek mythology and got to work creating the costumes from green taffeta material and head dresses from old tights, paint, wire and sequins.
A couple of weeks later they were all at Peggy`s house trying on their costumes in preparation for the Carnival on Monday, when Sue`s younger brother came in from work and saw the costumes, when he asked what they were doing, he got a little upset, as he to had wanted to enter the Carnival. It was`nt long before Peggy had gone through her cupboards and found an old white sheet, before long Mike Reed was transformed into Persius, the champion, who according to Greek Mythology slayed the Gorgons and saved the local community from their wrath.
After looking at all the costumes together, Peggy was quite upset that she would not be able to see the four in procession at Weston and decided to phone Wells Carnival Committee and ask if they could enter at the last minute in their procession the following day. The committee agreed that they could enter.
On the day of the Carnival they put on their costumes and painted their faces with green poster paints and hairspray as they had forgotten to but proper make up, they paraded round the streets of Wells as Persius and the three Gorgons, they were very successful and walked away with a first place award in their class, they repeated their success at Weston Carnival achieving the status of being the first group of people outside of Bridgwater to be invited up on stage to collect a second place. As they mounted the stage all of the Wells Carnival Clubs started to cheer "Gorgons Gorgons" and although it sounds like a cliché, they decided they would start a Carnival club, the name of the club would be, Gorgons Carnival Club.
Within the next year, family and friends gathered together and held meetings of the club, formed a committee of officers and a constitution of the club, a trailer was borrowed from a local farmer and another local man allowed them to build on his farm land and also allowed them to borrow a tractor for the November parades.
AS the Carnival Club enters a new millennium we still boast that three out of the four people who originally walked as Persius and the three Gorgons still remain in the club as dedicated members and most of the people who took the clubs first Carnival float out in 1973 are still either members or supporters and whats more, so are their children.
Sharon Ford, Secretary, Gorgons Carnival Club.
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