The Flying Fellinis

Have you ever felt that you wanted; needed to pour your heart out? We all do at some time or other, but some of us, maybe all of us have places in their hearts that it’s better not to pour, better to not even drip. Better to keep the lid on, cork in, heart or voice firmly stoppered. There ARE ways to let it pour it out so it can go unnoticed though; a joke, a story, an allegory – juxtapositions of the truth or the truth hidden within a lie or a lie taken and wrapped up in the truth. Many ways, lots of ways, ways to let it pour out without even letting a single drip drop. I intended to keep this in the bottle along with the murder party, Scotland, and the chicken, but here it is pouring out.

When I was very young I lived in a circus and my parents were the star attraction. They were a high wire act, the Flying Fellinis. If you Google them you may get my cousin’s son who is the guitarist in a band who use my parent’s circus act as the band’s name. My uncle’s grandson also keeps up the family tradition with a high-flying skateboard act that performs all over the world - they’ve even been auditioned by the Cirque du Soleil in Toronto.

I may at some time have mentioned to some of you the fact that I am an orphan. Adopted by my non-biological parents after a terrible tragedy in which my mother and father fell to their deaths. I hardly remember them now- Treya and Paul - my mother and father. I was not quite three when they died.

Treya was a Bulgarian trapeze artiste and Paul a Dutch high-wire daredevil. They met in 1955 in High Wycombe where they were both performing in Billy Smart’s touring circus. They married the following year, I was born in 1957, and by 1959, through sheer hard work and determined risk-taking, they’d become the stars of the circus, the headline act.

I remember our caravan, it was cream and warm, a wood burning stove sat in the corner and I used to love the smell of the wood smoke as it rose up and out of the tall black pipe-chimney and into the crisp autumn air outside. Autumn is the time for circuses, and I have vague recollection of a summer spent by the sea in Wales, the circus people laid-up in rehearsal waiting for the performance of the autumn – but then I could be wrong, it could be a dream, a false memory, hearsay – I remember it nonetheless.

They were a great act; my mother’s trapeze skills and my father’s strength combined to make the greatest high-wire act that the British public had ever seen – and of course back then they refused the safety of a net, there wasn’t any need for one, professionals – true professionals – didn’t need nets, after all professionals never fell.

The big performance, Oxford, the week before Christmas, me excited for Kris Kringle to bring me the ball I wanted so badly, the ball that I would learn to balance on. The mirrored balance-ball that would allow me to become the youngest acrobatic clown that Smart’s had ever seen. I would ride across the ring arms outstretched, my mirrored ball, the one that would one day lead me to the high-wire bicycle that my parents at this moment rode so fearlessly across the thin steel wire, precariously, high above my head, beneath me.

Bobo held my hand and watched as my parents rode slowly along the wire. My father holding the balance bar firmly in his strong hands - my mother standing balanced, arms outstretched, wavering gently upon his muscular shoulders.

They were professionals, true professionals - they had no need for a net.

It had been a terrible accident they said afterwards, nothing could have prevented it. My father had a blackout, maybe a small stroke, up there, high on the wire and both he and my mother had fallen to the sawdust sprinkled ground below. Sawdust is soft, but a December playing field in Oxford in December is hard and unforgiving. My Mother was killed instantly, crushed by the weight of my father’s body, her neck broken. My father died on the way to hospital, he never regained consciousness thank God.

I remember Bobo’s huge red smile as tears dripped from his chin, falling onto my small upturned face. That night I slept in Bobo’s caravan next to the elephants. I didn’t sleep much - I kept hearing my Mother’s scream and the GASP of the audience as she fell on the hard ground… THRUMP! The elephants were quiet that night - although I knew they were awake. Elephants pick up on tragedies – they feel the atmosphere.

A week later it was over. My parents were buried in Crendon churchyard, a circus funeral – clowns, elephants, jugglers, a procession, the ringmaster dressed all in black. I was fostered (and later adopted by my foster parents), and the circus moved on - perhaps to spend another Summer by the sea. There are no markers on their graves, why would there be? It’s the way of the circus, you come, you perform and you move on – it is all ephemeral – a passing moment. I know where they are though - and sometimes, on my way to Reading, take a detour to stop and remember.

And sometimes I tell this tale; when the mood takes me. Sometimes I’m believed, more often not. It doesn’t matter, it’s a pouring out of the heart, honest to me if not to all and there are ways to let it pour; a joke, a story, an allegory – juxtapositions of the truth or the truth hidden within a lie or a lie taken and wrapped up in the truth. Many ways, lots of ways, ways to let it pour out without even letting a single drip drop.

This was one of them.