Mention a missing gavel to red-faced Cactus club treasurer Brian Thornton and it all gets a bit prickly. The gavel has been used for the past 46 years to bring order to meetings of the Bradford branch of the British Cactus and Succulent Society, but not any more.

Mr Thornton, who with ten years’ membership is still one of the ‘new boys’ in the 66-year-old society, was the last to see the wooden gavel that vanished after he left it by mistake at the back of Shipley Library after the group’s latest meeting.

He was supposed to load the plastic trough it was in – along with two budding cacti, the fees box and a giant jigsaw – into his car, but he forgot and drove off without it.

“I remembered when I got home to Wilsden, but by the time I’d gone back it had vanished. There was no sign. I even looked in the bins. It’s all rather embarrassing,” he said.

Mr Thornton was so apologetic about the incident that he offered his resignation.

But he said: “Fortunately they recognised my talents as a treasurer rather than my talent as a loser of things and I’m staying in post.”

The ornate gavel was hand-carved in 1965 by Champion Crabtree, who was one of the society’s original members.

The gavel features a potted Rebutia and Epiphyllum leaf for the handle.

  • Read the full story in Monday's T&A