THE STORY OF TRAVELLING SHOWMAN JOSEPH BREWER AND HIS FAMILY FEATURING BURRELL SHOWMAN’S NANCY
BY KEN RICKARD
58 pages 29.5 x 21cm, softback, b/w and colour. Cost: £15 cheques payable to: K H Rickard, 12 Trelavour, St. Dennis, St.Austell, Cornwall, PL26 8AR, tel: 01726 822636, in aid of RNLI Newquay.
Ken Rickard, who is 90, has been working for a number of years on this limited edition book on something close close to his heart, the story of the former travelling showmen, the Brewer family.
Back in 2008 Moorland author Ken Richard came to an agreement with Alice Briggs (nee Brewer) who was the last survivor of Joseph’s children and who was 90 at the time, to preserve the family history with this book.
As a lad Ken was fascinated by steam-powered railway, road and farm traction engines, no doubt influenced by the number in use in Cornwall at the time. He went to school at Indian Queens on the A30 and he remembers Brewer’s fairground equipment parked up next door to the school playground in the 1930-40s.
It has been a prolonged job to get the book completed, having given up after a few months in 2008, but Ken came back to it all in 2021. It’s certainly an interesting story and of course the feature is Burrell No. 3288 Nancy which has a rather sad and chequered history in itself and is well featured in the pages.
