Why a Circus Blog?

So, why are you writing a circus blog, Lucy?  He grins.

That's easy to answer in one word.  Momentum.  

I write, because if I don't I would burn up. I write about circus, because that's where I'm at right now. Alice in Wonderland. In my Circus Space, curiouser and curiouser, where words tumble out and ideas are juggled around. It's my shadow art. I blog, and tweet, because an awareness of the audience keeps me going.   

What brought me here? Well, among other things, as a child I once saw Barnum, The Musical on television, gaping open-mouthed as Michael Crawford catapults from the main stage to his wife in the Royal Box, or belting out a call to arms as he toys with a tightrope, the audience wondering if he will make it.

I nicked my sister's tape of the musical and listened to it so much it stretched.  By then we knew all the words anyway, and so with my best friend, we would practice handstands in the garden and put on Barnum shows for our families. Spliced with Madonna, obviously.

Then last year, juggling three children, the youngest turning one, I was exhausted and frazzled, so I turned to these childhood memories and created a circus space in which to rejuvenate. I bought the CD again, and a copy for my sister too, and the infectious energy of the songs pepped me up.  A couple of months later, driving through West Sussex we noticed a billboard by the road advertising Barnum at Chichester Festival Theatre - what are the odds, right?!-  and saw the musical not once, but twice.  The kids *loved* it and now it's their turn to entertain.

In a life before kids, I lived for a while in Valencia, Spain, and from there travelled to Cuba, for the Young Socialists Conference back in 1997. I took with me a few letters from a friend, a theatre critic, to deliver to some of his friends in Havana. They were great company, lots of fun and we stayed in touch. After an interlude where I trained as an accountant with Arthur Andersen, a firm brought down by a few clowns in Enron in the States, I moved back into Latin American studies, with a focus on the performing arts, particularly in Cuba. 

I would love to say I'm a Circus Geek, but I'm not. I've never (yet) been to a traditional, big-top circus. If you were to come to my house you wouldn't find a mass of circus memorabilia, collected and cherished over the years.  But, maybe being the youngest of six, with perpetually itchy feet, I find a certain connection to the concept of a travelling circus family. 

Over the years I have noticed circus as an art form evolving and I'm drawn like a magpie to the glitter and sparkle.  The shows I have seen combine the grace of ballet, the dexterity of gymnastics, the showmanship of cabaret and the thrill of operating on a knife edge. My stock-pile of books, postcards and programmes has been steadily growing recently, and I've started exploring the language of circus myself by signing up to a course at the National Centre for Circus Arts in Hoxton.  I've never done gymnastics or ballet, and am interested in understanding the work involved in each move, interpreting the language of circus.  And also, because it's fun. 

I am a London-based mother to three beautiful children aged 8, 6 and 2. I once remember reading the colourful memoirs of Irish writer Edna O'Brien who wrote how her husband said he would divorce her if she published. I'm lucky enough to have one who tells me he'll divorce me if I don't. Thank you.

Postscript 2026:

It's over a decade since I wrote this post about the why of circus, and in a sense nothing, and everything, has changed. The kids have certainly grown! In the blog you'll find out about the circus journey. There was also a couple of years when we sailed off to sea 2017-2019, buying a catamaran, we called La Cigale. in La Rochelle and sailing her to Sydney, across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. That's another story. 

On our return, a clown posted on Facebook "National Circus are looking for a finance manager, do I know any accountants because I could do with a pay rise...?!" I replied, jokingly, "Yes, me!" And then stopped, thought for a moment, and realised that as a chartered accountant, I was seriously qualified. I applied and got the job as Finance Manager, not of the National Centre for Circus Arts (NCCA/National Circus) itself, but of the umbrella Conservatoire of eight performing arts schools including RADA, LAMDA, The Place, Bristol Old Vic and based at the National Circus in Old Street. I started work the week we got back to our London house, our life still in boxes, and haven't stopped since.

My work location brought home to me that my vocation was not back office but in the arena, like the performers I would catch up with on my lunch break, so once the consolidated accounts were safely signed off I resigned and left on Valentine's Day 2020, to retrain as a teacher, inspired by an article I had read a few years before by FT columnist Lucy Kellaway, founder of the network for career changers Now Teach. A few weeks later lockdown happened. Nevertheless I successfully applied for a PGCE in Modern Languages with UCL's Institute of Education, and took it from there.

I have now worked for six years in the state sector and my children ended up at the same school where I taught, with them joking it was the only way they could get to see me. However eventually my back gave way, the two herniated discs probably not helped by completing the Official Big Half in record time (2 h15 - record for me!), and I ended up having surgery last year to remove part of a bone digging into my nerve. I am eternally grateful to the care and camaraderie of the NHS. I was also diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, not great for working in an academy of over 2,000 students, and the time has come to slow down.

In recent years, very much the tail-end Charlie of six, I have lost both my parents. My father a few years ago, a centenarian born in Dublin on April Fool's Day, and my mother at the age of 94 this year. They had a long and happy life, and we were all blessed. But it is never long enough, and life is too short.

So here I am again, otra vez a la ventura, writing my heart out, encore. Watch this space...