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FUN CITY
All the fun of the fair in Brean
To many British children, Richard Cadell is known as the host of The Sooty Show, a long-running TV series featuring the glove puppet Sooty the bear. Yet for two decades the magician, entertainer and television presenter has also run an amusement park in the South West of England together with his brother David. As he celebrates 25 years in
business at Fun City/Brean Leisure Park, Richard shares his story with Park World readers
I
always wanted to build a Ghost Train, that was the dream. My brother, who does a lot of the fabrication at the park now, was very much into making models. I remember going to Bates’ Fun Fair in Leicester when I was six or seven and I knew immediately that that was what I wanted to do. I went back into school and told the teacher I wouldn’t be there the next day because I was running away with the fair!
When I was 18, I saw an advert in the [showmen’s newspaper] World’s Fair. It said “Ground to let at Brean Leisure Park, on site already Dodgem, bike track and rides for the winter.” It appealed to me because there was the also the chance to do a bit of DJing and I thought if I don’t make much money form the Ghost Train I could always work in the evening. Looking back on it now, it was a good opportunity; David and I have worked bloody hard and it’s become a good business. There was potential here, it’s just that no one realised it. I remember we bought an old Twist and the showman that owned the Dodgems at the time said, “I don’t know what you are doing that for, it’s not Blackpool you know!” But it’s only as good as you make it.
Lucky Log Flume
The turning point for us was the [Reverchon] Log Flume, around 1999/2000. We took out a huge loan, secured on every house we had, but the ride took money like we’d never taken before and that proved to us that if something’s good, the people will come for it. The next winter we bought the Wipe Out [KMG Afterburner], then the Crazy Mouse, and then we bought out the guy with the Dodgems. There were a few other tenants, but they were stuck in their ways; they thought it was their birthright to be here. I had always wanted my own park, so I found this place in Penzance and I went to [Brean Leisure Park owner] Richard House and told him me and
SEPTEMBER 2011
David were going, and we were going to take the Log Flume and the Mouse with us. Richard called back and said he’d lease us the whole park. That was six years ago, and it didn’t make us very popular with the tenants, but suddenly were able to make a real difference.
I wanted to stamp my identity on the amusement park. Brean Leisure Park sounds like it should be a country club or something; it needed to say what it was. Fun City, which is a terribly predictably name, just seemed quick and easy, and people are now beginning to call it that.
I wanted to create somewhere that had the service levels of a theme park but with the atmosphere of a fun fair, because that’s what’s missing from a lot of parks. We’ve pretty much got everything you would find on the fairground. We were without a Waltzer for many years. I thought you can’t have a Waltzer at an amusement park because it’s too fairground, but in the end you give them what they want and they love the Waltzer. We’ve also got quite a lot of KMG rides, and we would buy
David (left) and Richard Cadell on the station to Astro Storm 41
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