Confessions of a Showman: My Life in the Circus
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And that included any duck, which had got in through the back door, so to speak. So a council official was hastily despatched from Haringey to order that the animal be removed from the show or the circus would be banned.
Circus impresario Gerry Cottle was reminiscing about this true life incident at the Camden Roundhouse this week. Cottle was at the theatre in the Roundhouse — scene of many triumphs and disasters in his distinguished career — to promote his new book, Confessions of a Showman My Life in the Circus.
Ride them in races, take them out on leads and exhibit them in zoos. He did the romantic thing and ran away from his well to do upper middle class parents in stockbroker belt Surrey at just 15 to join a circus in Newcastle.
His first job was shovelling elephant dung and playing the back half of a pantomime horse. Today young hopefuls go to circus school to learn juggling and clowning and in Britain, at least, will rarely witness a performing animal.
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Then came the rise of animal rights in the late s and early s. If they were unhappy they could never have performed. However, there were plenty of examples of double standards. Cottle has fond memories of animal circuses at the Roundhouse.
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So also do many of the older residents who remember the excitement and smells. They paraded around together and then went in opposite directions. People would say how was it done?
Cottle was at the theatre in the Roundhouse — scene of many triumphs and disasters in his distinguished career — to promote his new book, Confessions of a Showman My Life in the Circus. Spanning a forty-year career, the book begins with Gerry a young boy in post-war English suburbia, growing up during the heydey of the big family circuses, when televised circus took the prime Christmas slot after the Queen's speech: It's a great hook, but unfortunately, the memoir itself is less than great. There was no respect for what we did. Open Preview See a Problem? Paperback Number of Pages: Taryn rated it it was ok Aug 08,
But elephants, like horses, would never step on a human. With the ban on animal circuses Cottle moved on to all people events in the s. He teamed up with John Hayes, who was experimenting at university with the Circus of Horrors involving weird and wacky stunts with midgets and pop music along with traditional fire-eating, sword swallowing and magic acts.
In between its lessons in how NOT to live your life, there are some amusing anecdotes about the circus in the book. However, the circus stuff doesn't quite make persevering with the bad writing and awful narrator worthwhile. Nov 12, Godzilla rated it it was ok Shelves: I was disappointed by this book - it should have been a fascinating insight, a page turner, as promised on the front cover.
Confessions of a Showman: My Life in the Circus (Hardback) by Gerry Cottle
It's not written particularly well; I could excuse that if it was Gerry Cottle's work alone, but it's not. It's repetitive and the language doesn't draw you into the tales, merely leaves you wishing for more detail and drama.
In terms of the subject matter: Cottle doesn't hide his drug problem or his philandering ways, but still seems to gloat slightly about it, despite his faltering admission of failure later in the book. Clearly he should have made a lot of money, but his singlemindedness and stubborn streak were his business downfall. Jul 22, Sarah rated it liked it Shelves: Littered with autobiographical details that I wasn't really interested in, such as the author's womanising and cocaine use, but rich with details on circus life in Britain from a man who came from outside the circus world and became the owner of the biggest circus in Britain, travelled abroad, broke world records, and started a great many ventures.
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Books by Gerry Cottle.