A Circus Memoir – My Life, My Universe, and a Few Other Things

By David Konyot

PART THE FIRST

it’s said that the first sentence of a book should grab you and force you to keep on reading so here it goes:
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT ,—- maybe not —- IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES, too dramatic – IN THE BEGINNING ! that’s a bit much,

ok , I think I’ve got it:

Until I was 15, I did what I was told to do.
From 15 to 25, I did what I had to do.
From 25 onwards, I’ve done what I wanted to do!
That’s better; that’s me!

The end result ( well not quite yet the end ) of those years has been a wonderful life, family and friends plus memories that I wouldn’t change but to get this far has been an eventful journey so before I forget my name and where my medication is let’s retrace it together and hopefully have a few laughs along the way.

0-15
First let me get the early stuff out of the way. My childhood is not full of happy memories; it’s longer lasting effects were a perpetual fear of abandonment and a big hole where my emotional intelligence should be; by the time I was 14, I was full of rage, very close to being feral, and educated to a point where I had a grasp of the three R’s, but that was about it.
Many years later trying to rationalise my attitude I read about the children who were evacuated because of WW2 and I wondered if they had the same emotional fragility and terrors that I’d had for many years, much as I could try to sympathise I was aware that every situation is uniquely different and my problems could only be solved by me or expensive therapy; I am not a great believer in the ‘psych’ -isms -iatry, -ology, -otherapy etc, plus the cost of laying on a couch and talking to a stranger seemed excessive so I meandered down the self-help road minutely examining every interaction with my parents in those early years, alternatively blaming them or making excuses for their behaviour. This went on until I turned 50 when I realised that this, in itself was altering my own behaviour.
What changed you ask ? Well maybe you didn’t but I’m going to tell you anyway. That’s the idea of the book, I found a poem by Philip Larkin entitled ‘This Be The Verse’ and it was, as they say, a Lightbulb Moment.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

The first two verses probably took Larkin a couple of hours to compose and edit but they put thirty five years of my life into perspective and it cost me nothing, well in monetary terms anyway.

OK now we’ll start for real. Well, first I have to explain the 0-15 -25 bit ,don’t worry we’ll start properly in a minute. In 1962 I was 15 and my father and I had our last confrontation, it ended as usual in violence but it also marked the end of what little relationship we had. I contacted a Circus ran by some relations of the family and agreed to go with them starting immediately. I joined the circus as a clown and Elephant handler/groom, because my father had been in charge of the Elephants on a couple of the biggest shows in the country at the time so it was assumed that I would know everything about Elephants. Of course, I didn’t but I would have said anything to get away. Anyway, the Circus was in Wales so I took a train the village where they were and they weren’t, there I mean ,so I went to the police station and asked if they knew where the circus had gone and not only did they know they took me there in the police car. Those were the days! Arriving at the site I was quickly shown the baby elephant who had been there for about a week. She was beautiful, a tiny loveable grey lump called ‘Princess Marilyn Mandy’. She was very young and about the size of a small horse. The horse box they had was not strong enough to travel her in so the owner bought a coach, stripped the inside, lined and insulated it and made a ramp at the back so that it was more suitable for her for the journeys.

PROVISO. This is important.
After years of Stand-up routines in Clubs and relating different incidents that happened in my life I know that every tale is told from a personal perspective, this was brought home to me a couple of years ago while at a cousins house, her father told a story that involved both of us but his version differed from mine in a few places. Of course, his telling made him look better. I was about to gently challenge him when I realised that everyone is a hero in their own story. I am no exception so just remember while reading this, hopefully riveting, narrative, that it is biased in my direction and I beg your indulgence but whatever the story or whoever tells it, the aim is to amuse and entertain.

Carrying on !- The first journey with my new baby elephant Mandy was eventful, the coach that she was in was driven by the boss of the show, Uncle Claude. I was in another van following close behind, a couple of miles out we saw smoke coming from the coach so we honked the horn , flashed the lights and everyone stopped. I jumped out of the van I was in and started lowering the ramp to get Mandy out, the fire was underneath the coach and quite small It hadn’t affected the interior so she came out easily. As I was walking her around, Uncle Claude had jumped out of his cab grabbing a fire extinguisher on the way out and slid underneath the belly of the coach. At the same time, one of the artists, a Unicyclist/Juggler whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, jumped out of his transport with his extinguisher and dived under the belly of the coach from the other side. OK, by now you will have already completed the story by yourself but I’ll continue anyway , from beneath the coach came a loud swooshing sound just like that made by two foam fire extinguishers going off at the same time, which co-incidentally is exactly what had happened, a few seconds later from opposite side beneath the coach came two figures resembling badly put together snowmen, dancing around trying to get rid of the foam while underneath the coach still blazed away quite merrily. I had a blanket over Mandy and was walking her away from the whole thing keeping her calm when a lady from one of the cottages came out and asked if I’d like a cup of tea. Slowly the situation resolved itself, the fire was from something beneath the coach rubbing on the shaft and the friction had set some straw and other bits alight with no lasting damage. Uncle Claude and the unnamed artist got cleaned up, I had a cup of tea with a lovely Welsh pensioner and Mandy quietly ate all the cabbages from her garden.
The rest of the season passed quickly without further drama and we returned to the Winter quarters. I had been teaching Mandy some basic moves in the ring copying what I had seen trainers do on other shows. When I came into the stable in the morning, I always brought an apple or a pear from the adjoining orchard and she would feel in my jacket pocket to find it. This became a little game between us which later had dramatic consequences .
During that autumn, the film Hatari starring John Wayne had premiered and we were invited to the opening at the Odeon cinema in town. Thousands turned out on the day and Mandy behaved impeccably. Lots of photo’s in the local papers followed and we got asked to do more press stunts, one was from a famous Inn/Hotel called “The Swan”. It’s well known locally and has a set of semi-circular concrete steps leading up to the main entrance, I wasn’t too sure how an elephant would handle steps but she breezed up them, went through the big main doors and drank a pint of what was supposed to be Beer but was actually cold tea, she then peed all over the floor putting out the big fire in the hearth, that of course was the picture in the papers the next day. Thinking back maybe she had remembered the fire in the coach and decided not to wait for the snowmen to put it out this time.
The winter of 1962 was the coldest on record and boy did I know about it. My day started early, the water on the site was frozen so I shovelled snow into a large oil drum over an open fire to melt so that Mandy could have a warm drink. I was 15, it was coming up to Xmas and I was miserable. I went to my Grandmother for a short break. She was in Leeds with Billy Smarts Circus. I was away maybe 5 or 6 days and on my return I went to see Mandy. She started fumbling around in my jacket pockets for her piece of fruit but I had forgotten to get any, (remember the dramatic consequences I mentioned in the previous paragraph ? Well here they come), She pushed me away in frustration. It wasn’t with any vicious intent but a gentle push by an elephant is still a push by an elephant. It spun me round sending me face first into the brick wall of her stable. I went out into the main hall of the big shed that was part of the Winter Quarter. My cousin, Victor Fossett, who was in the hall, took one look at me and I saw his expression change at the same moment my vision was obscured by a red stream of blood coming down my face, then everything got a bit hazy I remember Tommy Fosset’s wife Vera putting a makeshift bandage on my head and Tommy rushing me to the Hospital. Apparently, when I collided with the wall, I hit a piece of mortar sticking out which had caused the split in my forehead which was repaired with 5 huge stitches in. I was kept in ‘for observation’ because there was concern that some of the mortar may have got into my bloodstream and any large pieces could cause complications I think I was there for a couple of days but I can’t be sure. I do know I had time to think and the results was: Circus was not for me so I needed to get out and do something else! I remembered that the Konyot family home was in Brixton and over the next few days I managed to get in touch and through them I found my mother, packed what I had and went to London.

The link to a podcast recorded for Verena Cornwell and Circus Futures:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/circus-futures/id1549590547

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