lazy journalism and detrimental bias.

When will the Press stop using CIRCUS and CLOWN as words to describe Political chaos and incompetence especially now.

the present PM and his administration are constantly being referred to or pictured and photoshopped as clowns.

CIRCUS throughout the world survives through the teamwork and dedication of the disparate collection of artists gathered to entertain the public,

they travel the world and everywhere they go they take their work ethics, principles and morality with them ,

Unlike Politicians and the Press they hold themselves to a higher standard, and many take their life in their hands every time they perform, the only thing the press and politicians take in their hands is a glass full of something alcoholic

Circus survives and grows because we are the epitome of a good responsible society that is tolerant of all, CIRCUS is not sexist or racist and every artist is judged by their work and nothing else, Would that todays political leaders followed our example.

In this time of uncertainty due to the pandemic the co-operation between circuses and artists to help each other has been amazing, The FB page Circus SOS started by David Hibling has been a beacon of hope during the last months and shows our community at it's best. We must not let the media

denigrate us with their lazy journalism

If you think I'm right please share or put your own post up, lets try and stop the press from using the words CIRCUS/CLOWNS in this derogatory manner.

If you see an instance in the press, social media or TV write an email and complain, copy and paste this post to them in the email.

Thank You

I miss the phone calls

My mother and I had a strange, strained but mainly superficial  relationship , there was an underlying theme that we never explored, the elephant in the room ,

As explanation I was born in 1947 my mother was 17, my father 19 , in comparison to teenagers of the present time they were innocent babes,  neither had a great academic education , they were both from circus families to whom artistic skills were more important than the three R's. They met when my mothers Hungarian  family worked on my Grandfathers  Circus in England . Mother was an acrobat / contortionist and my father was a clown , animal trainer, horse rider , mechanic, ,a true jack of all trades, but this was normal in Circus life . Privately he was something else, nowadays his conduct would be classified as abusive and threatening  but in those days domestic violence was a fact of life,  the difference between a slap round the ear and a punch to the head was negligible.

My details are unimportant for as the 21st century advances we hear stories of child and adult abuse both mental and physical that are heartrending and sickening , we have grown as a society and no longer tolerate such atrocities but back in the '50's enlightenment was still a generation away .

1952 my story took a strange turn , I was 5 years old and was put into the hands of two lovely people in Stourbridge , The Rodens , George and Rosa .    they were friends of my fathers family and at some point my father and his sister Violet were left there to go to school ,  20 years later I was left with them for the same purpose , by this time George had retired from a life working for the railways and both he and Rosa were in their '60's, They were wonderful generous , openhearted  people  but being presented with a precocious 5 year old must have been a poisoned chalice, at the very least I was  a ferrel child with little or no social graces and , I spent the next 5 years going to school and in the holidays a luggage label was put round my neck and I was put on a train to be picked up by various relations on whatever circus /theatre they were in and spent time with them , in retrospect  I don't remember getting Birthday or Xmas card/presents from my parents during that time but that wasn't strange as i didn't know what parents were supposed to do. My memories of those years are at best minimal , I have flashbacks of moments but they comprise of a few snapshots but nothing substantial .

I don't write this to get a sympathetic response but just to explain how it affected my later life and  more importantly my relationships .

From  my 10th  to 15th birthday lots happened to affect me,  my parents were divorced, they both remarried , my mother got custody in the divorce and put me in boarding school , I ran away and ended up with my father but we had a  physical  altercation and I left him to get a job on my own in a small circus owned by a relation .
 In my first 15 years that final decision was the only one I made as an individual , until then every one was taken without my inclusion or involvement .






 

life ,Love and birthdays

 As we approach my youngest  daughters 21st birthday on the 9th of August  my heart is breaking , it's the first one we won't be together to party and celebrate and my family is a huge and treasured  part of my  life .

For my first 40 years this wasn't so because for reasons which I never came to terms with but eventually understood my parents were not a major part of my formative years, from the age of  4 -10  my parents were just a Xmas or birthday card . 
They were a product of their time and circumstances,   Mother was 17 and Father 19 when I was born in 1947 , she had been working since she was 4 years old in a variety of acts, contortion , acrobatics etc , He was raised in  the family Circus and had a wealth of talent, unfortunately none of it in parenting skills, He had a predilection for  other women and was constantly unfaithful throughout their marriage. 
 The determination not to be like him shaped my own life and relationships,  as a result my emotional intelligence was stunted and I grew up looking for love but shunning it when it became too serious , always using the timeless "It's me , not you " scenario to get out of a relationship . I now realise how hurtful this was to many of those I had feelings for and by todays standards I was probably not a very nice person.
  I determined not too marry until I was at least 40 believing that by then I would have the maturity to settle down raise a family,  it didn't work out that way, 
    My first child was the result of a wonderful relationship with Mia ,  a delight to be with, fun , full of energy and life , in  general a happy soul , we worked together on a circus in the late '70's and she was one of the first girls that I really fell in love with but as always with me it couldn't last,  She left the show and reappeared some time later with a pushchair with a little girl of about a year old telling me that this was  my daughter, My memory tells me I behaved gallantly and offered to 'do the right thing' by her and the child but to my eternal shame I don't think I did , Mia said that she wasn't prepared to travel with a circus and had decided to stay single and bring up her daughter on her own , I wasn't prepared to give up my life so we parted with the agreement that when the girl was older Mia would tell her about me and leave it up to her if she wanted to get in touch.
I told two people about this, my Brother and when I married in '87 my first wife, I did this in case something happened to me and my daughter got in touch at a later date.

I still find it hard to open up emotionally, Oh, I'll cry at a sad film , a well written piece of prose or good writing can bring me to tears  but that's superficial , my true emotion only comes out when I work, In front of an audience I'm stripped naked for the world to see, my triumphs and disasters all happen in public .
This is hard on my family but I do try and hopefully as I get older it gets better . 














 . 

Circus , society and the corona virus .

The pandemic that is the Corona virus COVID-19 is having an affect on society and the world as we know it and however long it lasts we will never go back to pre March 2020 habits and attitudes . I am a circus artist and we look at life through a different lens,  For many centuries we were insular and separate from mainstream life , Nomads travelling from one town/region/country to another entertaining whoever sat in front of us , This gave us a unique insight into the world and it's inhabitants , it was a case of 'us and them'.  Over recent decades we have integrated and become more  accepted into society but we have kept many of our traditions , habits, foibles and superstitions , the strongest of these is a sense of fellowship , In times of trouble we unite to help and aid any of our community in trouble  regardless of the circumstances, It's happening during this present crisis , many circuses throughout Europe just as the season was starting were locked down in the town in which they were performing , some got help from the local authority but many others were shunned by theirs. Artists from all over the world suddenly trapped  in a strange land with no recourse to financial aid and being left to their own devices,  Circuses and Artists using social media came to the rescue offering places to park caravans with electric and water , animals getting food from local farmers  ( who are turning out to be heroes throughout Europe ) and giving advice to many  on how to get home, many shows stayed together with the Big Top still up as a place to practice and 'self isolate'  as a group  , sounds strange but it works .
 I read of many local communities where this type of co-operation has  happened but these are people who live close to each other in a small neighbourhood , it's different when the community is spread from Norway to Greece and UK to Ukraine. The other side of the story is many circuses throughout the EU have offered their Tents, Generators and other assets to Governments and local authorities to use as emergency hospices, testing sites or A&E facilities .
Over the next weeks and months much more of this behaviour will happen as the situation worsens and people realise that their dependence on the 'kindness of strangers ' is the norm .

At the end of the crisis and because of it I believe that society will change considerably , people will look at their leaders, both local and national, with different priorities , How they behaved during the time of trouble , did they lead or were they led , were they decisive and honest , did they tackle the situation in front of them to the best of their ability or did they see it as an opportunity to further their own ambition and try to bluff over the ' bad bits', I have to admit I wrote the last paragraph with Trump and Johnson forefront in my thoughts as they both seem to be still campaigning and putting politics (with a big and small P ) the before national interest .

It has usually been the case that 'cometh the hour , cometh the man - or woman'
but it seems that is no longer true, Governments throughout the world affected by the virus had very different and varied solutions to the same problem from immediate lockdown and quarantine to social distancing and self isolation , the speed and spread of the virus demanded a more instant  response from all sides led by the major administrations in unison but in an age of Skype , conference calling and many other technological advances in communication this did not happen , the U.S. and Trump were on a program  of denial , " Everyone's doing well, they're all getting better " these comments came from Donald  Trump while deaths were being reported on other networks that he describes as 'Fake News' . In the UK Boris Johnson resorted to his Dominic Cummings inspired soundbites which got him elected ,  meaningless platitudes in place of facts . it seems that both are re-acting to events instead of being proactive and decisive.
The UK government has been noticeable by it's absence , Only the PM, the Home Secretary ( mired in a bullying scandal and unable to command her position with any authority ) The Health Minister , a Johnson acolyte who is incompetent in the job and the Chancellor are visible,  out of these the Chancellor is the only one to have any credibility, behaving with dignity that belies one so young in such a position  and  at all times talking to the people and not at them .

It has been many decades since the world has gone through such a grave situation , one thinks of WW11 and the havoc that caused  but that was over more than 70 years ago, since then there have been other  conflicts , skirmishes and 'Police Actions ' but none as severe internationally ,
There have been two 'Pandemics since WW11 ,the Asian and the Hong Kong flu, the latter occurring  in 1968 so we have had 5 decades/Two generations  growing up without having to cope with or prepare for a worldwide emergency .

No 10= Not Downing St, 10th chapter of My life the Universe and the other stuff

I returned to a very different Cottles circus , It was smaller and the performance was a very good production built around an old tale from Uzbekistan about a travelling magician and puppeteer (played by Chris Barltrop) whose dolls come to life , Carlos and Guillermo Cardinal arrived a couple of days after me, we had a coffee and straight away there was a connection and a good feeling, we practised a couple of times then we were in the show , how they slotted us into an Uzbeki childrens story I can't remember but thats the magic of circus , Suspended Disbelief I think it's called , anyway we were working and getting ready for Hong Kong.

There was one problem which none of us had foreseen, Part of the Cardinalli's routine which they had performed for years involved a singing duck ,well a quacking duck actually, I played the Blue Danube on the Trumpet and at the appropriate moment after the first five notes = Altogether now, DA, DA, DA, DA, DA , The next four notes were

quacked by our Duck QUACK QUACK < QUACK QUACK , you get the idea .

The show moved to Alexandra Palace and after the first night someone complained that we had a 'performing animal ' and we were threatened with closure by the council which at the time was led by Bernie Grant, remember him ? Ken Livingstone on steroids, Chris Barltrop got his publicity machine going full pelt and we were everywhere, I did a long interview with Brian Redhead on the Today Programme on radio 4 , we had photo's in the press , one with me sitting on a suitcase playing the trumpet with the strap-line 'Clown looking for a new job' It was really a lot of fuss over nothing but the left wing administration of Haringey tried to politicise it.

In Gerry Cottles Book this story is related but has the incident happening with the Hazard Clowns in 1994,

It didn't , it was 1986, Alexandra palace , I was there.

We were ready for Hong Kong but some of us had to stop in Sharjah in the UAE on the way to put on a show for an international fair, I went to do a paste act with Willie Cottrelli and Graham Butterby ( little Bean) two Cottle stalwarts, also in the show were Juggler Luis Garcia and his sister Pilar who had a super foot Juggling number, she was a little perturbed when she found that the Dress Code for female artists in Arab countries stated they had to be covered from wrist to ankle with no exposed skin, Pilar had some beautiful costumes, some quite small but all covered in sequins and stones so they glittered and shone like diamonds, now she was loathe to give them up, her answer= she bought the tightest thinnest tracksuit she could find and wore that with her costumes over the top!
After the short break in Sharjah I flew on to Hong Kong to be met at the airport by Alan 'Doody' Dudley an old mate who's journey into Circus was started by my uncle Hans Vogelbein who once took out a small Circus and employed young Alan , as he was then, to travel with the show, he liked the life and stayed, he worked for a few shows and ended up on Cottles, universally popular, easy going with a great sense of humour he was a good companion and not too shabby as a cook , cakes and cookies were a speciality of his and were enjoyed by many of us, but sad to say he was taken from us way too soon.

For the Hong Kong season I was asked if I would also Ringmaster repeating my Barum experience, I knew I wouldn't be announcing the show, they had a Chinese Radio DJ to do that but they wanted me to run the performance , I could handle that and the clown act , no problem .

Hong Kong was an experience like no other , four months of pure delight , I had worked a lot of european countries where the only difference was the language and the scenery , This was another culture , !

Before we left the UK Sonny Fossett and a group of carpenters had made complete sets of flat pack furniture, beds, wardrobes, tables and other vital pieces, they were packed into the contain ers with the tent , equipment and artists props with the intention that when they arrived and were emptied the flat packs would be assembled in the containers to make the accommodation , Apart from a Skeleton staff brought from the UK we employed local Honh Kong workers, many spoke english but I learned a little Chinese quite quickly, I like to speak the language of the country I'm working in, I think it shows respect even if you pronounce it badly , because of this I got the job of procuring what else we would need to make 'Container Alley ' habitable ,

Bedding, cutlery, washing machines, shower equipment, mattresses, in fact everything that couldn't have been constructed in the UK or indeed was cheaper in HK, They bought a runaround car and I would make regular trips to Hong Kong town , Kowloon side or Stanley to get what we needed, it was great fun - and I was getting paid to do it .

The only things that didn't come in those containers were of course, the animals , Marcel Peters would be presenting his Lions and Gerry had employed Carlos Rosaire to come with his Crocodiles, I knew Carlos from my younger days , he's Joan Rosaire's cousin and he lived in Spain so his first journey was to England by road , I then accompanied him to Southampton where his truck compete with tank and crocs was craned onto the ship, he said later it was the best trip of his life, there was only him and a small crew aboard, they had a pool and great food what more would you want ?.

The Tent was built up in Ocean Park just a couple of Km's from the main shopping district , Hong Kong itself was over the water on Kowloon side just a ferry ride away, a bustling, busy, hectic city where you could get a suit made in a day and that was about how long it would last, Nearly every day I would go down to Wan Chei or Central because there was always something that was needed on site, I soon got to know the traders and became friendly with many of them and had fun haggling with them in english and my little bit of Chinese .
There was an English pub in Central called the Groom and Jockey , I'm not a pub-goer usually but it was a link with home, they had the daily papers so I could keep up with Chelsea's progress and they had a Phone so that I could keep in touch with the family in the UK.

My friendliness with the local traders had a mild downside when during the run-up to Chinese New Year in February I was downtown buying supplies and other goods and in every shop or stall I went to I was offered a glass of 'Mi Jiu' to celebrate, ( MiJiu is Chinese Rice Wine much like Japanese Saki ) in Asian countries it's rude and discourteous to refuse a gift so having visited a few of my regular stalls and partaken of many MiJui's I was a little , shall we say , unsteady or in journalistic parlance 'tired and emotional' I don't remember driving back to ocean park but I do know I spent a long time in the shower before I had to do the show.

Returning from Hong Kong I agreed to stay with Cottle's because I wanted to start my own clown act with me doing the comedy, The show was going to Ireland and they had booked Yasmin and Dany with their horses so the chance to renew our Austrian adventure was irresistible, especially with the prospect of making Martini's with Irish Poteen .

Through various circumstances the start of the season was a little tough,

Gerry was indisposed so Chris Barltrop and Betty Cottle took the show out with Chris covering Gerrys normal role of doing the business and overseeing the whole thing, because of this change I agreed to be Ringmaster until Gerry came back and Chris could take over again, This happened in the middle of the season and I finally got to do the clowning, I started off with a simple paste act working with Willie Ramsey and a couple of reprises with Chris, Juat after the summer Yasmin and Dany tragically lost one of their main horses so they returned to Belgium and were replaced by Pam Enos and her football dogs. The Enos family had been on Chipperfields, father Phil performing his Comedy Car with pamela hidden inside working the gadgets, sons Rudi and and Colin were the shows run-in Clowns.

In the 40's Phils wife Doreen and my mother and father had worked together on Fossetts Circus, Doreen had looked after me and been my baby sitter while my parents worked their acrobatic act so our families already had a history , which was about to get even closer.

A little while after Gerry had returned we were told that he had talked with Martin Lacey and had asked him to take over running the show on a permanent basis, this was a surprise because Chris Barltrop had done an excellent job under difficult circumstances but thats the way it was,

We arrived back in the UK and built up in Middleton in Chesire the Lacey family were already there , Martin, Sue and the kids Martin jnr, Alex and Richard.

I had met Martin a few times over the years, most notably backstage at the Belle Vue winter Circus in the mid '80's, we were sitting in the the backstage area having a coffee and chatting when a particular circus director who was known to both of us, walked past, instinctively Martin and I both stood and saluted, not out of any feeling of deference or esteem, quite the opposite in fact ,It was pure bloody mindedness but we realised we had a similar appreciation of some members of our profession and that was enough to bond a friendship

Martin asked me to stay on to to do the clowning and over the next few weeks we found we had many other things in common , the same sense of humour, a liking for Mateus Rose wine and importantly similar ideas about the future of Circus.

My personal life took a turn , in February 1987 Pamela and I were married at Cottles winter quarters in weybridge . We started the season with our musical clown act and Pamela's Football dog act and settled down to married life.

Towards the end of the year we were offered the chance by Gerry to do the winter circus at Wembley ,the show was being presented in one of the halls and there would be a lot of noise from the Fairground rides in the same hall and it wasn't a good atmosphere for a clown act so I declined , instead we went to France to the Jean Richard Circus for the Gala season back to the UK for Xmas in Worthing for Gandeys and the following summer 1988 we were going to Ireland for the season with Fossetts Circus , they had booked us because 50 years previously they had my Grandfather and the Konyot Springboard troupe on the show and they thought it would be decent publicity to bring back the family name for the anniversary

By this time we had a good musical clown act with Pamela and myself as Clowns, our White face was Martin Crosswell and our other partner was Andy Kemp a lovely young guy who was , to use the awful PC phrase ' Vertically Challenged ' He was with me for 6 years through good times and bad, a wonderful partner , a good man , nothing got him down , he could do anything a 'normal' could do and most important , he was Funny !!!! , later on he married and had a super family, No-one deserved it more.

On August 20^th in Tralee my lovely daughter Olympia was born , named after my great aunt Olympia Konyot she has grown into a beautiful talented young lady of whom I am extraordinarily proud, she herself is now married to Marian and has two children of her own so the Dynasty carries on.

In '89 we were booked to appear with Circus Hassani in Chessington but for a month before I was in Kuwait as RM and producer for an Italian Circus touring the UAE this was arranged by Billy Arata and it was a super month but was a little bitter sweet as a couple of years later when Sadaam Hussein invaded Kuwait there were TV pictures of the Kuwaiti prisoners being held in a building which I recognised as the buffet where we had gone to eat every lunchtime before the show, to try to equate the fun and good time's we'd had there with the suffering and pain that was being endured by the local people was a sobering moment.

During the '89 season we were invited to the Clown Convention in Bognor Regis, Apart from the clown act Andy and I did our japanese reprise ,I had a large fat body suit ( no facetious comments please ) and was introduced as Satsuma the Sumo King, Andy was then announced as the Karate Kid and would run into the ring and do a high karate leap ,

in the show we followed Charlie Caroli and Claudie who had done a water gag and the ring was still a little wet , So, Andy came flying through the curtains leapt in the air with a scream , landed on the water, fell on his arse and slid the full way across the ring hitting the ringfence on the other side like a car crash , The laugh that followed was the biggest I have ever heard and just went on and on and on , I sat on the ringfence waiting for it to calm down then said to Andy “ we can't follow that” and hand In hand we walked out of the ring , another one of those happy accidents that could never be orchestrated or repeated but a wonderful memory.

For the winter of 89/90 Austen Brothers put on a huge Xmas circus in Battersea Park , we took part in one of the strongest circus shows seen for many years , Twice during the run we had Royal visitors , One was Princess Diana with the two young Princes , The other was Princess Margaret , both visits were private with minimum security but during Princess Margaret's visit she suddenly appeared in the ring doors during the interval wanting to see the animals, a line up was quickly organised and after her visit to the stables she came back and was introduced to everyone . In the show I was doing my 'Spaghetti Entree' as a semi-drunk waiter ,as she shook my hand the Princess said very quietly “ you remind me of someone at the Palace” Enigmatic or what ?

The Clown Act was going really well and 1990 we went with Circus Fiesta, Jeff Jay was my White Clown and what a good one he was , A talented performer and a great sense of humour ,

Xmas 90/91 was the second Battersea winter circus , again a very strong line up of artists which included Yasmin and Dany, another welcome re-union ,

The show was produced by David Hibling ,We had worked together a couple of times , he was an excellent Ringmaster and animal trainer with an impish sense of fun , a very long and self indulgent version of us doing 'the Busy Bee' in Worthing comes to mind . As a producer he had some very brave ideas and a sensitive and clever choice of music . , Over the New Year we put on a midnight Matinee with everyone doing a parody of each others acts , the undoubted hit of the night was David as 'Tasmin Tart ' , As I said an Impish sense of fun .

In 1991 we were with Chipperfields which was Circus Fiesta with a name change , a contractual dispute brought our season to an end In July, and at the urging of my brother -in -law Colin we took out a Circus for the last couple of months of the season, It made sense , He had a Tent hire company which meant that all the equipment was there , Calling in a lot of favours we got a good show together and it was a good chance to try some production ideas rather than just put up a running order of acts , we got Jeff Jay to come with us and he was invaluable ,he could turn his hand to anything, a real jack of all trades and master of them as well

Hippodrome Circus was a good experiment but disappointing in the end, it taught me an important lesson that the non-artistic side of running a circus was not for me , The paperwork and general admin is very time consuming and frustrating .

1992 was the year of Circus Berlin , It was special because it was also Olympia's debut in the ring, It was originally supposed to be a one-off , we had her dressed as a mini majorette to come in and do the march as a special treat for her fourth birthday, yea ,like that was gonna happen !!!! .

the next day she turned up dressed an ready and the day after that until we gave in and put her into the main act with a couple of little gags .

The end of 92 I was pretty low and a little disillusioned with Circus after the problems at Fiesta and the Hippodrome failure and I was thinking maybe we needed a change , We were parked at Fossetts Winter Quarters for a few weeks when I got a call from Martin Lacey ,We had been hearing stories of Gerry Cottle wanting to get out of Circus to run some sort of travelling theme park , Martin confirmed this and said that Gerry wanted to close the show putting Martin out of work, After looking at some other options Martin offered to buy the whole outfit and go out in his own right , would we be interested in going with him , ? we could carry out the ideas we'd talked about over our glasses of Rose wine in '87 , It was an offer I couldn't refuse so despite many problems and obstacles Circus Harlequin took to the road , It started out temporarily ( and with his agreement ) as Gerry Cottles circus with the intention of changing the name as soon as we could , This was hastened by Mr Cottle suddenly announcing to the press that he would never have animals in his circus again , and he was against performing animals , this was not so good as his name was still on the transport and we had all Martins animals , It was Easter ,we were at Southend and you've never seen so many trucks painted and re-lettered in such a short time

OK we'll leave it there and carry on with the 'Harlequin experiment '

in No11, not far to go now , your doing very well we'll soon be at the end

after a short delay No9 of My Life they Universe , you know the rest .

Life the universe === ( you know the rest)

This is the 9^th episode of many, many more.

Prologue- while editing this portion of my story the sad news came the Gerry Cottle had passed away from Covid 19, He was an innovative Circus director and produced some of the most exciting shows which thrilled the public for many years, he had a turbulent life away from the Big Top and tried many other ventures but always returned to the sawdust ring , luckily every generation produces one or two 'Jossers' , non-circus people, who rejuvenate and take circus forward , In my own family my Paternal grandfather and Maternal great grandfather were both from private life who ran away to the circus married circus girls and became influential directors, in the UK since the 60's Gerry, Brian Austen, Tony Hopkins, Martin Burton and latterly Anthony Anderson, all from private life, have come in, enhanced and moved Circus forward.
I have always extolled the circus families who have kept the circus arts alive through generations but the energy, passion and drive of the private entrepreneurs gives us a platform to keep entertaining which is our life and our raison d'etre.
Back to the story ====

August 1980, Robert Bros; Circus, Crystal Palace, London, my friend and agent Billy Arata comes into the ring doors in the interval and asks “ Do you want to go to Holland “ my reply = “Not now , I've got the second half to do “ not funny but quick !
The offer was to be RM at the Kerstwinter circus in Eindhoven which I gladly accepted, Now remember this is in August, In December I drove to Eindhoven and walk into the Circus building where Billy is talking to Frank Torres, He looks at me and says “Bloody hell, Konyot, what are you doing here “?

“You booked me to be here ”

“ Oh that's right , you're here , I'm in Rottterdam , I'm in the wrong place “ !

having said that he left the building and we didn't see him again until the Xmas show was over.
Billy along with his brother Victor had been one of the best Wire acts I the world but had now become a circus agent , everyone loved Billy, he was exasperating and disorganised but he was a good agent and fun to be around.
After Holland I returned and had a season booked with Circus Hassani run by Ali Hassani and his wife Tamara, Having formerly been an artist himself, Ali had troupes of Morrocan acrobats performing in Circuses all over the world , Tamara was the daughter of Nicolai Poliakov better known as Coco he was one of the most famous clowns in England, he was a stalwart of Bertram Mills Circus for many years and was well known as the MOT's 'Road Safety Clown' a Role performed later by the Green Cross Code man ,David Prowse ( Darth Vader in Star wars ) and in the 90's for a short time by 'The Konyot Clowns' me and my first wife Pamela , we also worked with Dr Barnardos, heading the 'Just Say No' campaign ,educating children about the ever increasing drug and child abuse problem . Both achieved limited success as the Government of the day wasn't prepared to realistically back us in any serious way.
Back to Circus Hassani, Tamara was the driving force behind the show and the previous year had become the first circus to be animal free, many other UK Circuses were outraged and hostile towards Hassani's but most of it was bluff and bluster as within a generation nearly every UK circus was non-animal, for the majority the decision was not for ethical or moral reasons but pure economics but it was an advantage to take the moral high ground as an excuse.
The downside is that they let the domestic animals go, Horses, Ponies and Dogs have been part of circus from the very beginning, from the time of the Saltimbanques, Voyageurs, Gauklers, Travellers, who were the origins of todays circus traditions, this generation has turned circus into Variety shows in a tent .
But I digress.

1981 Circus Hassani appearing at Chessington World of Adventures = Super season, 3 shows a day, 4 at peak times but the shows were 45 mins; and we were finished by 6.00 pm, we had a football team which beat all the teams from the other sections of the park , Catering, Zoo, Fairground, Office staff , We even had a match against a team from Windsor Safari park and beat them as well, I love football but I wasn't that good, Michael Austin was the best of us, a good player and goalscorer but we had fun and I kept fit.

Winter 81/2 back toEindhoven for the second winter,
This was the programme =

Tom Dieck Lions

Billy Smart Elephants

Ramirez Cloudswing

Fernandos Clowns

Romero Rola Rola

Mullens Unrideable Mules

Golgojews Cossack Riders

Romero Cloudswing

Duban Nicol Comedy Trampoline

Dubskys Football Dogs

Tagora Fire eater ,Fakir

Granger Family Puppets

Sinekos Balancing Act

Jarz Family Flying Trapeze

Hans Peters Speaker .

I look at this line-up and can't think of many shows today who could replicate it .How times change.

During the run I was introduced to Gerd Seimoniet who offered me a contract as 'Speilleitung' for his show Circus Barum, The literal translation is 'Game Manager' but in German Circus it meant RM, Stage Manager, Artist manager, basically everything that went on in the tent from the first customer being seated to the last note of the finale music. I had received other offers from European shows but Barum was one of the most prestigious shows in Germany and I gladly accepted.

My job was not just to announce the show but I had the responsibility of 'setting the show' ,that meant putting the Artists and staff caravans place , the show vehicles were a job for the Circus transport manager , When the tent was up I had to make sure that the ringfence was set properly , The cage for the wild animals was inside it and was pulled up during the show so any deviation from a perfect circle had repercussions , There was the earth and sawdust to go into the ring to make a level and comfortable surface for the animals to perform on , This part was undertaken by many of the artists as it was in their interest as well, We had a Russian Cossack riding act, 'The Bratuchin' and Liswoy Bratuchin was my partner in crime for two years in getting the ring ready for the show, he and his wife Dee became like a second family to me, in fact Barum was the closest I'd got to the Chipperfield atmosphere , The Bratuchin, The Christianis, rolling globes, The Chabri clowns, Linda Van Gool ariel artiste par excellence , The Sinecos a Czechoslovakian balancing act , Jack Bremlov Juggler , the Clarrisons Sealions , Pano and Dino bulgarian twin clowns plus all Barums house artists Charles Knie a wonderful trainer of exotic animals of which Barum had a lot , Harry Althoff ,Elephant presenter , EddieMeschke with the Horses and Finally Gerd Siemoneit himself with His Tigers and Lions ,

He was acknowledged as one of the great wild animal trainers of his generation , I would sit and watch him train and he was indeed in a class of his own , I was very proud when he told me one day that he had been a great admirer of my great Uncle Oscar Konyot who had worked on Ringling Brothers Circus in America , He even admitted he'd stolen a couple of his tricks , I found Gerd to be quite a shy man but excellent company, his English wife Rosalind was very kind and helpful to me in those first few months, Occasionally Gerd and Rosalind along with Lisvoy and Dee ( who they knew from a season together in Blackpool ) and I would go out for a meal , especially if there was an Indian restaurant, a favourite for both me and Rosalind, during one of these evenings we were talking about the next season, It appeared that my return was a foregone conclusion which was a nice feeling , Rosalind mentioned that Gerd wanted an in-house clown act, a clown troupe that could grow with the circus, there was an example with Circus Knie in Switzerland, this tied in with something I'd seen a year or two before in Monaco at the annual Monte Carlo Circus Festival, The Ringmaster Sergio had worn a White Face clown make-up for part of the show and it looked really good , I suggested that I could do this and combine  the two jobs, Ringmaster and White faced Clown, all we had to do was find a couple of clowns for me to work with, Gerd and Rosalind both liked the idea so we started planning

The first name we came up with was Chico Fluckinger a Swiss clown with an lovely engaging personality who duly agreed to come so we were left with one space to fill.

For Xmas I was going to Kelvin Hall Glasgow with Robert Brothers Circus , a well established Winter circus venue with only one drawback which I found out about on arrival, Burn's Night = I was expected wear full dress Kilt and recite the famous 'Poem to a Haggis ' I actually wore the Kilt for the whole season ,the girls said I should 'cos it made me look sexy , Somewhere there is a photo, luckily it's  not here !

Halfway through the Kelvin Hall season I got a letter from Gerd Seimoniet to say that they had found the third member of the new Barum Clown act and we would meet in the winter quarters on my return, 2 weeks before opening I duly arrived at Einbeck the circus winter quarters, seeing Chico first I asked had he met the new clown ,”no” was the reply we were all going to meet up in the house , evening came we went to the house to the surprise announcement that the new clown was Gerd himself, to say that I was surprised would be the understatement of all time , I liked him a lot and as a wild animal trainer and presenter he was unequalled, but as a clown ?

We rehearsed and got a routine together but as the season went on it was obvious that it wasn't really working, Chico and I got on well and had both stressed that it would take time for the act and the partnership to develop but as a trio we didn't gel, It's a shame but that's life .

In the meantime I was getting offers from clown acts to go with them as a White Clown but I wasn't really interested they were all too my mind a little old fashioned and not what I wanted, one however, excited me , it was from Tony Alexis, since we had last met he had married and had a son , He said he was separating from his family to start a new act , he'd seen me working and was I interested in going with him, we met up ,talked about a few things and came to an agreement .

The Tony Alexis trio first saw the light with a small German circus called Carl Althoff ,we worked for free for two weeks to break the act in, from there we went straight to Paris for a season of Galas and then to Munich's famous Circus Krone for the Xmas and New year season , this was a baptism of fire , Krone is one of the most prestigious shows in Europe and we had been working together for 6 weeks , the opening was a night to remember , Tony was at his best and the audience loved him, we were a young act fast paced , playing good music and getting laughs all the way, what's not to like ? Outside the ring was just as memorable , on opening night one of the girls from the front office said there was a bottle party in her waggon so most of the show turned up and a good time was had by all,  The next day she started returning the half empty bottles of booze to the people who had brought them to the party, I said it was a shame to waste good drink so bring them all to my caravan and we'll carry on the party after the show, this continued for the whole month , after the show my waggon was open house, constantly full and apart from the inconvenience of having to work the party went on for the whole month .

The next two years were a whirlwind , from Krone we went to Busch Roland for 6 weeks then to Norway with Circus Merano for the season finishing in September, then Vienna to Circus Jacobi Althoff , Paris for the Gala season , then Rome for Xmas and the New year ,

Between Paris and Rome we made a short stop in Monte Carlo to perform in 3 private shows for the Royal family of Monaco , One for the Royal family and a few invited guests , about 30 people in all , the second for the family and staff of the Royal Palace and the third for Princess Grace's Red Cross Charity raising funds for the poor children of Monaco , (I know, I had a problem with that as well )

After Rome we went to Offenburg for a German TV show , While in Offenburg Tony and had a problem, he had renamed the act , 'Tony Alexis and Company “ and I wasn't happy about being the 'and company' part , we had started together and in were all equally responsible for our success, we also had a discussion about money , which didn't end well , we agreed to part at the end of the season in Austria.

The Austrian season was terrific fun , Yasmin Smart and Dany Cesar were there with their horses , Dany and I spent a lot of time rock climbing while Yasmin prepared Mai Tais or Martinis for our return ,it was to put it mildly, a very 'Social' season. Tony and my problems became untenable a bit before the end of the season , it's hard to do comedy if there is ill feeling and it became impossible to work together , Tony believed that he was the whole act and actually said , “ before me you were nothing, I made you ! “ a little harsh I thought, So I challenged him to find another White clown before I found another job . This happened in Innsbruck and off I went to the Post to make a couple of calls , the first was to Billy Arata who said “ring me back in twenty miutes” I had a coffee and rang back , Billy said “ I have the Cardinalli Clowns whose Father wants to retire, they are looking for a Partner and I have a contract for you with Gerry Cottle in Hong Kong for the winter, you can start straight away in England , I went back to the ground and told the Circus direction what was happening , I agreed to stay until Tony found a new partner , mainly because the owner of the circus, Madame Jacobi Althoff knew my family and was a friend of my Aunt Lottie Konyot who lived in Vienna , about three weeks later Tony found someone to work with and I was on my way home , I had loved clowning both on Barum and with Tony but I wanted something else and knew the only way to do it was with my own act .

     No 9 done  - No10 soon