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“ONE HAND”
June 1946
I must have been nine at the time, at least not quite ten years old, because it was still the school summer term and I was home that week, recovering after a bad bout of summer 'flu.
It was a Wednesday. Mother had gone off with Grandmother on the early bus to visit my Auntie Monica in Bury and I was trusted to stay at home on my own.
You know me by now, I didn't stay home on my own! Almost before they had turned out of sight at the end of the road, I had fetched my bicycle out of the wooden shed opposite the back door and ridden off to Denmark Green to see what this Circus looked like.
The circus posters had been up for days. Big impressive posters, and lots of them. I didn't think that such a big show would have come to Diss, even just for the one day stand, and I wasn't going to miss it.
I was in plenty of time, too. When I arrived there were only two lorries, plus a box trailer and a four wheeled caravan, standing at the front of the common. Two men and a small boy were wandering about throwing metal stakes on to the ground.
“Want to help?” the boy asked me, and I did want.
I certainly learnt more about circus tents that day than I have ever learnt since. Julio, the owner's son, wasn't even as old as I was, yet he and I did that build up together. His father and the elderly tent man did all the heavy work, but when it came to pulling out ropes and, a bit later, to building up the seating and the ring fence and the props then we did it all.
“Does he want to go in as a clown?”
It was about half past three and the old tattered green tent was up and everything was ready for the show. As ready as it would ever be. Julio's father found us in the ring doors, where I was brushing one of their two ponies, and made his invitation.
I accepted.
By the time the five o'clock started, at a quarter past, I was dressed in an old, one-piece clown suit and wearing the clown face that I still use now. Julio's father showed me the trick of finding where to put the mouth and the eyes that day. As someone once told me it's bad luck for a clown to change has face, I never did bother to find a new one.
We stood in the ring doors before the show, waiting as the last customers came in. Julio had been making my mind churn by telling me all the things I'd have to do.
“Don't worry!” Said his father. “Do what comes naturally,” and went in to make the opening announcement.
That circus was a fake!
Julio and his parents were the show! His father had a story that the major part of the show had broken down along the way, and the best acts and animals were not able to come in time. “But the show must go on!”
But that didn't matter to me. I was part of it, instead of looking at it from outside.
We went in the ring after every act and did our best to pad out the program with the help of a selection of old and worn out clown props. But one trick still sticks in my mind.
I practised the trick from the time Julio showed me how to do it, and was still practising when his mother came out of the ring with the counting pony and grabbed the props out of my hand. We raced into the ring and were doing leapfrogs when she came in with the glass full of pale red liquid.
“Julio! Peppi!” she called. “I've got something for the cleverest clown in the circus!”
“That's me!” we both shouted, as we ran to see what it was.
“I've got a glass of wine, but it's for the one who is cleverest.”
I announced that I was cleverest, but Julio was certain he was.
We argued for a while until she interrupted us with a loud cry of “STOP!”
“You have to prove it. You have to drink it with ONE HAND.”
What a thing to say! Who needs two hands to drink a glass of blackcurrant cordial, even if you do call it wine?
We were right at the front of the ring, walking round telling the children in the boxes how silly she was, and that gave her a chance to place a saucer upside down on the top of the glass. She turned the whole thing over and put it on a chair by the ring door curtains, where we found it.
Julio looked at it with a very puzzled face. He tried lying on his back under the chair and his mother just stopped him lifting the glass bodily off the saucer in time to prevent him making a mess.
“I can do it!” I announced to everyone.
Julio accused me of being big headed!
“Let him prove it!” ordered his mother.
I had practised long enough not to make a mess of the trick. I knew it perfectly by now, and it's not at all difficult. I knelt down in front of the chair and picked up the saucer with its glass.
“One Hand!” I shouted.
I leant back and balanced the saucer on the forehead. Now the tricky part comes!
But was quite easy after all. I grabbed the saucer and pressed it into my forehead as I stood up. With my hand transferred to the glass, I nodded forward. Then that left the glass the right way up with the saucer on top, so I could put it back on the chair and grab the saucer away. I ran to front of the ring and waved my saucer to the audience.
“One Hand!” I said, proudly.
“One Hand,” shouted Julio by the ring doors, picking up the glass from the chair and pouring the cordial into his mouth. Which was not what we had practised!
I thought I was supposed to drink it!
I was not at all amused....
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