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 .
Wednesday, 11 August 2021
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 .
.
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 .
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 .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
