South Yorkshire Times – Friday 25 November 1932
Pocket Hercules
A Mighty Atom from West Melton
Health & Strength
A young man walked into our office the other day and said he would like to show us how strong he was. We looked at him, noted his broad chest, brawny hands and strong frame, and backed a little. At that moment an inquisitive colleague came up, and, to prove our courage and our broadminded readiness to try anything once, we suggested that Samson should demonstrate on him. This fell through because, as it happened, our colleague was not feeling well.
But there was a poker handy—would the young man care to have a go at that? He would. He took the poker (making sure that it was not hot), gave it a sharp twist with his hands, tied it in a knot, and threw it on the floor Like a spoiled child with a toy he didn’t want. It isn’t a poker at all now.
We realised that this was no ordinary man; and we thought it well to humour him. Nothing heavier in pokers was available about the place, so we fetched him a bar of steel about three-quarters of an inch thick, and, presto! he did the same with that.
Then the young man told us who he was, Ernest Gothard, 3, Linden Road, West Melton, England’s champion bar-bender at ten stones. We saluted, but forbore to shake Lands.
Ernest Gothard is 25 years of age, and a son of Mr. Frank Gothard. He is employed at Cortonwood Colliery as a trammer. Up to three years ago he lived at Hoyland Common. Gothard told us that in his boyhood he was very delicate, and as a means of regaining health he took a course of physical culture.
When he wits 21 he began to take lessons from “The Mighty Apollo.” of Dewsbury, who is champion strong man of England at11. The effect upon his health and frame was remarkable. He never had a day’s illness since, and from being a weedy young man he has developed a chest measurement of forty. He can now:
Push a three hundred pounds expander across his back and lift 200 lbs. with his neck at the same time.
Bend with his hands a bar of mild steel 10 in. long and half-an-inch thick.
Bend 6in. bolts three-eights of as inch thick.
Hold twenty men in a tug of war.
Pull a ton lorry with his teeth.
Let a ten-stone man stand on his throat.
Knock 6in. nails into a 3in. board with the flat of his hand.
Support 500lbs. of dead or live weight on his shoulders.
When Gothard told us all this we expressed the hope that nothing we had said or done had offended him. He assured us he was quite friendly; in fact, we could stand on his neck if we wished to. We told him the floor was not altogether free from dust, and that in any case there might be an accident.
Samson assured us that all these stunts were bona fide and genuine. If we had six good-sized men handy we could put a rope round his neck in a loop, and let three of them pull at each end in an effort to strangle him. He explained that his resistance to this lay in the extraordinary strength tnd tautness of his neck muscles. The pulling, of course, could not go on indefinitely. The thicker the rope the better for the subject, but usually one of half an inch diameter was used.
Gothard said he had succeeded to the title of England’s champion bar bender from Arthur Brooker, of Leeds, and was recognised as such by the Health and Strength League. If there is a strong man in the country of his weight who thinks he has more right to the title he will be glad to meet him anywhere for a public demonstration.
He trains with the Holgate Health and Strength Club at Barnsley, and is in such a state of physical fitness that the most exacting of his feats of strength produce little effect on him.
Gothard is known as the “Pit-Boy Hercules.”