JJ Tohill remembers the thrill and excitement of entering the ‘Big Top’ and being transported to an exotic world of fantasy
When the gaily coloured posters announcing that the Circus was coming to our wee town of Ballycastle appeared on poles and hoardings, the juvenile population sat up and took notice. The details of the show were studied with an amount of concentration and thoroughness never bestowed upon school material!
Although we were not aware at the time, the attraction of the ‘Big Top’ was as strong and fresh for our parents as for ourselves. But the Circus folks of course were fully aware of this by cleverly arranging night performances as well as a children’s matinee.
The expected day of the arrival of the circus couldn’t come quickly enough. We got up at dawn to watch the long line of brilliantly – painted caravans whose colourful exteriors concealed many of the mysteries that we hoped to see unravelled in a few days time as it made its way through the town.
As we happily walked around the Fair Hill circus camp we could see leopard–skin horses with their unusual markings, the sight of a baby elephant in a special cage and the chattering of monkeys helped to whet the appetite for what was to come.
The magic carpet had finally arrived and was being unrolled onto the green grass and those who watched the process – of erecting the huge tent and setting up the high wooden seating – assured those who were watching, that what they saw boded well for a performance that was guaranteed to have glitter and spectacle in plenty.
The moment we entered the Circus tent on the evening of the performance, we found ourselves in a new world. We had stepped from our drab life onto the magic carpet where an exotic world of fantasy awaited us.
Through the diffused amber lights, we gazed at the sawdust ring with its gigantic canvass roof, its surrounding tiers of seats and the glistening silvery bars for the trapeze artists that hung from on high.
As the seats filled up, the band took their places and I persuaded my aunt Mary to buy me an ice-cream. In a few minutes, a number of brilliant arc lights sprang to life, the band struck up with ‘No Business-like Show business’, and the show was on.
The ringmaster, with his black top hat, entered the ring accompanied by a piebald horse, a crack of his long whip sent the horse trotting around the ring at a cracking pace.
A young man suitably clad jumped on its back and began to perform, he slid off and mounted again with enviable ease and grace, and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was more at home on that horse’s back than we were in our ‘hard’ high seats.
Later two girls astounded us further by dancing on the backs of other horses that trotted briskly around to the tune of the ring master’s whip. And then six leopard skin horses wove patterns that were a joy to behold.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own
