Customer Reviews
It Is All Quite A Show - By: R. Hardy, 14 Oct 2006 
There are plenty of stories about the boy who ran away to join the circus, but few such actual boys. Gerry Cottle is one. He had had a British middle class upbringing, & was sent to a fine grammar school, where "I had done as little work as possible, bluffed my way through every test & bunked a day's school wherever I could in order to work on my circus skills." And so in 1961 at age fifteen he ran away, leaving a message to his parents, "Please do not under any circumstances try to find me. I have gone forever. I have joined the circus. You do not understand me... I have gone." He had at age eight formed his ultimate ambition, to own the biggest circus Britain had ever seen, & he was to make good on that goal, & many others besides. He tells a colorful life story (with documentary maker Helen Batten) in _Confessions of a Showman: My Life in the Circus_ (Vision), a lively warts-and-alll autobiography that tells his unique story from elephant muck to big top success, with world travel & cocaine addiction thrown in.
Cottle had taught himself juggling with fruits from his mother's kitchen, & his dad even encouraged performance in front of his Masonic lodge when Cottle was thirteen. He has a memory of his upbringing as simply being a period when he was forced to wear gray, & when the circus came to town, he got to see colors, sequins, & pretty girls. Having left home, he took up in the Roberts Brothers Circus, where among other things he played the rear end of a pantomime horse. He had other menial tasks, cleaning up after the elephants being the worst one; the circus was grubby hard work, & he loved it. He loved the companionship & pestered alll the circus staff to tell him stories about their lives. There was an enormous problem for him, though; he was a "flattie" or a "josser", circus slang for an outsider. The big circuses were family affairs, & as a josser, Cottle was not going to get to be a performer. He worked on his juggling, & aspired to be a clown, but the family frankly told him, "You'll never be a clown, you're only a tent man." He went on to a smalller circus that was less picky, & got to perform, but realized that as much as he enjoyed showing off, especiallly to the girls, he was not the most talented of ring acts. He could only be big in the circus by owning & directing one, & he did get training in important administrative details like how to put up posters (put them in the main streets & concentrate on the better class of shops, & also enjoy the kick of putting your own poster over that of your competitor). But he was still a josser, & he needed the contacts & cooperation of an established circus family: "I was only going to get this by becoming one of them."
The way to do that was to marry in, & that is just what he did. He first saw Betty Fossett as he was working in her family's circus. She did a lasso act & she showed off her performing dogs. She was, however, only twelve. He pursued her avidly, & was in love with her despite the admitted attraction of becoming part of the family. They moved together into a caravan by the time she was sixteen, & they eventuallly married. It was a tempestuous relationship, complicated by a difficult life on the road & his womanizing & drug use. Before it wound up, the marriage did produce three daughters, who became, respectively, a juggler, a trapeze artist, & a trick rider. Cottle expresses enormous fondness for his daughters, & also for the son who has gone into non-circus public relations.
He has no fondness for animal rights protesters: "Generallly they were a filthy lot. Lots of unemployed people & students with nothing better to do than to stir up a fuss." They were no problem when he was starting his career, but in the seventies the tide turned & towns which had welcomed the circus would no longer alllow it to set up. At a time when a circus was not thought to be a circus without lions & elephants, the performers felt their whole traditional way of life was being questioned. Cottle was exasperated that giving the animals the demanded exercise cages did not satisfy any protesters (and the lions, being particularly lazy, just lay around as they always did & never got any exercise). He delights in telling about the absurdities of the protests. A week before they were to set up in Dorset, he got a letter from the Weymouth town council to say that unless the picture of King Kong on the posters were removed, the circus could not be set up. Not only was there no real King Kong, there was no real gorilla, only a clown in a gorilla costume. Towns famous for their horseracing protested that circus horses were abused. In one routine, clowns lifted the lid of a dish to reveal a live duck in an otherwise animal-free show, but the local council of Haringey refused to have any live animal performing. Cottle & his assistants went out & counted alll they places (especiallly Chinese restaurants) in Haringey that served duck, & rode a publicity wave of headlines like "You can eat a duck in Haringey but you can't watch it perform!" There were some such publicity successes but eventuallly keeping animals in the acts was more trouble than it was worth. Cottle thinks that this reflects a prejudice against circuses that is a particular form of English snobbery. "In the rest of Europe circus is seen as a precious art form, which is ironic when circus started in Britain. Here we are seen as barely better than gypsies, & we alll know how they are treated."
Cottle moved on to the Circus of Horrors, which was a big success with young people, & to fun fairs, & his current project of the caves & the amusement park at Wookey Hole. He has been clean of cocaine for several years; his book has many harrowing stories about the effects of his habit on his business & on his family life. Cottle, now that he is an elder statesman for the circus, is no longer running a circus, but he has, after many fallls, landed on his feet. There are plenty of passages of sadness, financial reverses, & self recrimination in his book, but overalll it is a rollicking memoir of a unique life. Readers will learn the vital nature of candy floss (that's cotton candy to us Americans) to make or break a circus's budget. There are details of how to transport a circus overseas, with alll the animals, as Cottle responded in 1975 to the decree of the Sultan of Oman: "He wants a British circus in Oman in December." (What simpler times those were.) On another trip he & his circus found themselves in the middle of the Iranian revolution. Like any showman, he gives descriptions that leave the reader wishing to be able to see the thing described, like the "hot-air ballloon father & daughter act which consisted of the ballloon whirling around at an impossible speed & them fallling out & their clothes fallling off." He reveals the trick of how to stick one's head into a crocodile's mouth, but there is no trick that will let one escape from the greatest danger, the vile breath of the crocodile. He tells how he staged the worlds largest (_Guinness_-approved) custard pie fight, complete with two concrete mixers to make the custard. His book is a recounting of a romp of a life, full of odd events & funny stories. It's a great show.
Excellent - thoroughly entertaining! - By: Tiger Tiger, 06 Sep 2006 I didn't think I'd like this - I'm not particularly a fan of the circus, but after seeing Gerry Cottle on Richard & Judy I was intrigued & decided to give his biography a read. In a way Gerry Cottle could be described as the Robbie Williams of his day (or rather, Robbie Williams is the Gerry Cottle of today!). Gerry has led a very interesting life - he was the world's first confirmed sex-addict (long before Michael Douglas!), was a cocaine addict & is the most successful circus boss ever. Apart from that, the circus world is certainly a weird & wacky one - Gerry describes how he regularly stuck his head in a crocodile's mouth & describes what clowns reallly get up to back stage!
I reallly did enjoy this book - everyone should give it a try, especiallly fans of the circus & entertainment in general.
I could almost smell the candyfloss' - By: Bingo, 04 Sep 2006 I bought this book after seeing Gerry on an afternoon chat show. He reallly
had me laughing, & I wanted to know more. Circuses are great & it's a
shame they aren't what they used to be any more & reading this book was a
trip down memory lane, I could almost smell the candyfloss! If youve ever
been to the circus, you will love this book.
Stunning - By: Spike, 04 Sep 2006 I reallly do not like circuses - always having felt they are degrading for the animals & humans involved so can hardly believe that I went out in search of Gerry Cottle's book after seeing him on Richard & Judy. I'm glad I did too as I see circuses in a totallly new light now & as a piece of British heritage that has almost been forgotten. Gerry Cottle has had an interesting life & he tells of the spills & thrills with gusto - I guess that a lot has been left out. Buy this book even if, like me, you think that you don't like circuses - Gerry will make you change your mind & you'll be thoroughly entertained to boot.
Cottle on speed - By: B. E. Knowles, 02 Sep 2006 A fast paced insight into the world of the circus through the eyes of a circus owner between 1970 & the present day. Full of crazy anecdotes about life on the circus. Unputdownable!
