I've just found a forgotten piece of paper sent to me by Dave shortly before he died with his definitive version of the Roman Gladiator.

He says that Bruce Campbell, Groundsman at Wethered's Brewery in Marlow, wrote it with six verses in about 1940. Dave added the two verses before the last one.

THE ROMAN GLADIATOR
(Bruce Campbell, verses added by Dave Houlden)

Ever seen a sight like a Roman candle, chap who never let his braces dangle,
Gladiator bold and furious, rushes round the town in a skirt so curious
I'm in the bodyguard of Julius Caesar; he's got a fizzer like a lemon squeezer
My name's Marcus Didiydacus, permanent address just Rome.

CHORUS: I'm glad, glad, very, very glad; I'm glad I'm a gladiator.
Ancient Rome, that's my home, in a fried fish shop by the Hippodrome.
I'm glad, glad, very, very, glad, from my helmet to my toes,
My old Dad was a Roman lad, and he left me a Roman nose, 2, 3, 4.

Round the Coliseum we kept marching, wearing dickeys that have got no starch in,
Watched by Nero—he's our hero—watching our performance on a bellyful of beer-o
All day long he keeps on fiddling, Thumbs a-twiddling and fingers diddling.
We must please him. If we tease him, he'll throw us in the lion's den.

I once fought a duel with a lion called Nifty, mangy bugger with a look so shifty.
Horus Torus rushed him for us, shoved his weapon up his Leororus.
He came in like a bucking bronco, caught him a wallop on the niftus pronto,
Oh what a win! Oh what a din! Everybody thumbs up! RAH!

Julius Caesar had a motto, only remembered it when he got blotto:
"Null secundus hairus randy." He was a bugger on a pint of shandy.
On his banner was a strip-tease dancer, three French letters and a mounted lancer.
He can't fool us, got no tool, us lost it in the Ides of March.

Old Marcus Anthony, the dirty shitehouse, lost all his medals in a Rome red light house,
Woke in the morning feeling solemn, couldn't see the end of his Roman column.
Down in old Pompeii you can see his ruins. Girls of eleven were amongst his doings.
Agnus bagnus, any old shagnus, talk about a Roman wreck!

I took my holidays in old Pompeii. Can't say that I enjoyed my stay.
We'd insured against Jupiter pluvius, never gave a thought to bleeding Vesuvius.
Piece of lava hit the missus on the cranium. We transferred to Herculaneum.
Saw the younger Pliny filming it on cine. I buggered off back to Rome.

At the Tenth Legion's regimental dinner in Sicily, all the guests were arselus pissili.
Senior Centurion, Paulus Gallius stuffed the regimental eagle down a dark back alleyus.
Silly bugger there called Horatius held up the traffic. It was most vexatious.
With his finger up his arse, he refused to let us pass, so Tarquin threw him off the bridge.

They were a queer lot, the Ancient Britons. Look at 'em twice and they'd have kittens.
You've read in "De Bellis Castri" how we were poisoned by a Cornish pasty.
We lost Marcus to a fair young Druid. She gave him an injection of a priceless fluid.
With his arse full of woad, he croaked like a toad and we left him in the Edgware Road.

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