The Smell of the Greasepaint, the Roar of the Crowds

If you’d asked me, when I was a child, who is the person least likely to want to visit a circus, my response would have been instant and unequivocal: my dad. He liked his own company, was the most intelligent, most intellectual man I ever met - and my opinion never wavered until the day he died at the age of 92. Dad was into philosophy, chess, maths, anything that required deep thought and logical thinking, certainly beyond anything I was ever capable of. 

He liked to sit at his chess computer (one of the very first), sucking on his pipe and pondering his moves. Or he could be found, pencil and notebook in hand, working out indecipherable mathematic equations. His hero was Bertrand Russell, and he would try and explain various aspects of philosophy to me, all of which went totally over my head, certainly until more recent years when I began to take an interest. 

 So yes, dad would be my last choice as companion to the travelling circus. However, I was about to learn that there’s nowt so strange as folk. I only recall one visit to the circus as a child - accompanied by my mum and two brothers - where my abiding memory was the awful smell wafting up through the floorboards, the fear in my heart as the trapeze artists swung their precarious way across the big top, and sadness at the sight of the elephants looking resigned and dejected as they plodded their way around the ring. 

Consequently, when I had children of my own I was never very keen to repeat the experience. This is where my dad came, unexpectedly, into his own. ‘I LOVE circuses!’ he declared as I discussed the subject with my mum, who was usually game for anything involving her grandchildren. Mum and I swung round in shock. ‘You?! Circuses?!’ I asked in amazement. ‘Love them,’ replied dad with a big grin. And so it was that dad became unofficial Grandchildren’s Entertainment Monitor for special events. Parks and beaches didn’t interest him but show him a circus, a corny comedian or a fairground and he was in. He was packed off with most of the eight grandchildren, who came back with hilarious tales of granddad being singled out by clowns, animal tamers and even the ringmaster on one notorious occasion. Granddad, himself, returned glowing (once with badly applied clown makeup, which had gone down a treat on the tube), and excitedly discussing his next planned event. 

 I found it strange that my clever, often very serious, dad loved the madness of a fairground ride or the colourful world of the circus. Maybe it was due to the fact that, as far as I know, these things didn’t form part of his childhood. They were certainly a huge contrast to his working life as an optical engineer and self employed optician. Whatever the cause, it was good to see his transformation on these occasions. 

 A couple of years ago the circus came to Blackpool and I took the grandchildren. I thought they would be mesmerised. I probably built it up too much. I soon realised that the main attractions were the hugely overpriced bags of candy floss, the flashing lights on sticks and the toilets which were outside and across a field. Thankfully, the days of the sad elephants were long gone, as were the giant cats that I remembered seeing cowering on plinths, under threat of a long whip. In their place, strangely incongruous, roaring motorbikes criss-crossing the ring, narrowly missing the dancing girls - and each other. All accompanied by flashing lights. 

Amalie, looking quite stunned by the motorbikes at the circus

Maybe the grandchildren are used to more sophisticated entertainment these days, or maybe the circus wasn’t a patch on Blackpool Illuminations and the Pleasure Beach, but despite that, I think we all had a good time. We made a lasting memory, even if it was only the excitement of the outside toilets....

When I was a child I used to love Children’s Favourites on the wireless on a Saturday morning. I once sent in a request but it didn’t get played. However, the Nellie the Elephant song, below, could be heard most weeks. It had a sadness about it that I recognised, even at that young age.   Years later, partly because it was so easy to remember, it became part of my repertoire of songs to inflict on the grandchildren. *

 Nellie the Elephant 

 

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk 

And said goodbye to the circus 

Off she went with a trumpety trump 

Trump, trump, trump 

Nellie the elephant packed her trunk 

And trundled off to the jungle 

Off she went with a trumpety trump 

Trump, trump, trump 

The head of the herd was calling far, far away 

They met one night in silver light on the road to Mandalay. 

*thinks maybe this is why they weren’t that impressed by the circus…. 

 Thanks for reading….. Jill

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Circus - Excitement and Anticipation

Piccadilly Circus, 1972. My friend and I felt like we had landed somewhere exciting. We were staying a long weekend with my family in Roehampton. Encouraged to go out and have fun, we took a bus then a tube and eventually emerged from the Underground at Piccadilly Circus. It was the hottest day ever and we went straight to Boot’s the Chemist for deodorant which we liberally applied in the nearby public convenience. My orange loon pants with navy blue pleats and a navy tank-top was my favourite and most fashionable outfit at the time. The trousers were made of stretch towelling – beach clothing, really – too heavy for such a hot day, but I loved them so much. (Except one night when I wore them to go ice-skating and they soaked up gallons of surface water, but that’s another story.) My friend was dressed more sensibly in shorts. We shopped on Carnaby Street, watched a busker, looked around Soho, sat on some grass in the shade and eventually made our way back to Piccadilly Circus and the tube station for the first part of our return journey to Roehampton.

It was fun when I was seventeen, but London like any major city is too busy, too fast moving and loud for me so I’m not a regular visitor. Exceptions have been made to go to see The Moody Blues a few times at the Royal Albert Hall or the O2 Arena. Well, of course I’d go then. There was another time when there was no holding back.

The Prince Edward Theatre, 1978. Evita. Tickets like gold dust, but lucky me. There is only one Che for me and that is David Essex. No one else can sing ‘Oh What a Circus!’ with such passion, giving everything to the exceptional lyrics of Tim Rice who perfectly captured the media circus of the time.

I was a child when my family moved to Blackpool. One of the first places I remember being taken to is the Tower Circus. Mid 1960s and animals were still a big part of the show, horses, elephants and am I imagining sea lions in the water finale? I don’t remember if lions featured. My favourites were always the clowns with Charlie Cairoli.

At around the age of seven, I latched on to books by Enid Blyton. I discovered that I could read something other than ‘the green reader’ or whatever my school reading book was. Still in the infants, I’d moved on from Janet and John and found that I didn’t need to read out loud to understand the text. Book after book came my way, Secret Seven, Famous Five, lots of the Mystery series, fairy stories, and somewhere in the middle, before the boarding school tales from Malory Towers or St. Clare’s, I read the circus stories, Mr Galliano’s Circus, Hurrah for the Circus! and Circus Days Again. They began with the arrival of the circus folk parading through the town and setting up camp. Excitement and anticipation grabbed me in the first paragraph and carried me along the chapter as the author introduced characters, illustrating each one with her vibrant description as she did all her books and I loved it. Circus Days Again is the only one of the trilogy in my possession. All of my Enid Blyton’s are treasured.

On that long weekend in London almost fifty years ago, someone joked about Piccadilly Circus and how wise we were to come home before dark. We didn’t know what they meant and we didn’t ask because we were two worldly, clever, independent seventeen year olds.

I found this poem:

Piccadilly Circus At Night – Street Walkers

When into the night the yellow light is roused like dust above the towns,
Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in the midst of the downs,

Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain along the street,
Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in expectancy to meet

The luminous mist which the poor things wist was dawn arriving across the sky,
When dawn is far behind the star the dust-lit town has driven so high.

All the birds are folded in a silent ball of sleep,
All the flowers are faded from the asphalt isle in the sea,
Only we hard-faced creatures go round and round, and keep
The shores of this innermost ocean alive and illusory.

Wanton sparrows that twittered when morning looked in at their eyes
And the Cyprian’s pavement-roses are gone, and now it is we
Flowers of illusion who shine in our gauds, make a Paradise
On the shores of this ceaseless ocean, gay birds of the town-dark sea.

D H Lawrence (1916)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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