Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Chipperfield Circus #1 (From Robert Kitto)


Since you have had a lot of English and European photos on the site, I thought these 2 from Chipperfield might be of interest.
Bob
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Posted by Buckles at 5/08/2007 05:48:00 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

from Jim Stockley:

This is 1953 - the circus I was born into (my mother and her brothers owned the show). Stromeyer Tent, made in Germany, 70m x 52m, 6000 seats, Roman Chariot racing in the track,16 elephants in the ring, Polar & Black bears, lions, tigers, leopards, chimps, giraffe, camels, llamas,zebras, penguins, sealions, pelicans, hippo, 100 horses in the stables, Raluys double human cannonball, tiger on the elephant .......... nothing like the sorry excuse that England now calls "circus"

08 May, 2007 07:16
Anonymous said...

It is interesting to note the double decker bus in the left hand corner of the photo. Do you suppose the show carried such a vehicle?

08 May, 2007 10:21
Anonymous said...

Greetings Mr. Stockley, You seem to be an opinionated individual, which I admire. What is your take on why the circus in England has became a sorry excuse? We here in the States need to be aware of the why's and wherefor's. Thank you. Wade Burck

08 May, 2007 11:06
Anonymous said...

This is also the show I started with, but a good few years later. The double decker bus on the left hand side was converted to transport George the giraffe. Standing in line with it are the many beastwagons that housed 9 polar bears, 10 black bears, 10 tigers, 16 lions, 4 leopards and numerous more. They also had 2 black rhinos among the many exotic animals they carried. The show ran for 2 hours non-stop with no interval. They only sold ice cream and programmes. No other novelties in those days.

3 cage acts opened the show and, at one time, 4. The last being the tiger riding the elephant and at the conclusion of the act, Dick Chipperfield Snr. would point to the highwire as the ringmaster announced the Dresslars highwire act, who were already out on the wire and into their first trick. That's how fast the show operated!

At one time they had 24 elephants travelling with the show. That's the most I can work out they had at any one time. Jim Stockley may be able to confirm this.

By the way with all these Jims on this blog, it is easy to get confused.

08 May, 2007 12:11
Anonymous said...

from: Jim Stockley
for: Jim Clubb.... the fact that we both have sons named Jamie doesn't help the confusion either!

For:Mr Burck, Whilst I certainly have opinions, I wouldn't have thought of myself as opinionated. If my postings appear conceitedly asertive or my opinions dogmatic, I apologise as that was not my intent.

It is my opinion that a circus without animals is not a circus in the traditional sense.

Whilst I haven't worked in English circus for nearly 30 years and can't offer a detailed commentary on the decline, nor point to all the reasons why or the mistakes that led to the current situation, I can note that when I left Chipperfields in 1979 I was working a group of 11 elephants and other shows had similar numbers. By 2007 there is only one elephant left in all of British circus, there are few cage acts and the animal rights activists are even protesting the use of horses and dogs. To me that constitutes a "sorry excuse" for a traditional circus, especially as the European mainland has not followed suit.

Perhaps the British public have the circus they want & deserve ?

It's one of the reasons I live in Africa ;-) Sala kahle

08 May, 2007 12:41
Anonymous said...

Mr Stockleys comments brings a question - when & where did the animal rights movement originate and gain the most strength??cc

08 May, 2007 19:46
Anonymous said...

Mr. Stockley, I to apologize for any misunderstanding. Perhaps, outspoken would have been a better choice of wording. Confidence is often mistaken for arrogance, as pride is mistaken for conceit. I think the statement that the publicv has what it want's is very true. The question is, why did they not want what we were producing. Wade Burck

09 May, 2007 08:14
Mike Naughton said...

Regarding Animal Rights...here in the USA the most notable Animal Agitators campaign happened about 20 years ago against the use of milk-fed calves for veal.

I think the agitators were surprised that their campaign drastically reduced the comsumption of veal at restaurants and in the home kitchens. In fact, it almost destroyed an entire segment of the food industry.

Several years ago in New Jersey my show was picketed by two Agitators. Turns out they were college students that were hired by a temporary employment agency.

They had our entire route for New Jersey and were scheduled to "protest" and hand out propaganda for the next several weeks.

After a rather nice conversation I made a deal with them to bring all of their material to me EACH DAY they were scheduled to work and I would pay them $25. each to go home and they still collected their pay from the employment agency because nobody ever checked up on them. Remember, this is New Jersey, the land of The Sopranos.

By the way, three cheers for RBBB, The Commerfords and all the great fans in Connecticut for mounting a massive anti-anti informational campaign this week.

For those of you handy with a computer, it is not that hard to send an email to voice your opinion. Let's protect our right to enjoy and own circus animals!

09 May, 2007 09:35
Anonymous said...

Looks like the location of this photo is just up the road from me, in the Potteries at Stoke on Trent? ....from all those bottle kilns(now all gone)smoking in the background.

Paul Griffiths

12 May, 2007 14:13

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