Gerry Cottle

Gerry Cottle0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Gerry Cottle0:14

This programme was archived without the music, so we've rebuilt the original show by using music from the BBC Gramophone library.

Gerry Cottle0:23

The extracts are all from the music, if not the performance, originally chosen by the castaway.

Gerry Cottle0:28

Details of the music can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

Presenter0:50

On our desert island this week is the circus proprietor Jerry Cottle.

Presenter0:54

Jerry, is music an interest of yours? Music is important, but I don't think I'm one of those that has to have the radio on to be able to work.

Gerry Cottle0:58

Yeah.

Presenter1:02

No, I like music, but

Presenter1:04

I'm a busy person in my mind. I don't need it all the time. Do you like to have a say in arranging the music for the show, or do you leave it to your bandmaster? I do have a say in the music, and I'm not very good. I mean, there's some tunes I think. We had that last year, and what is it, and how do I hum it? And I had to say to my wife or one of the the old musicians, a drummer who's been with us a long time. What was that tune we had for the so-and-so last year? I haven't got a very good name for tunes or the the actual names of them. Do you play an instrument?

Presenter1:30

No. There's two things I'd like to do. I'd like to be able to play the drums properly I'm played about with and I'm diabolical and I'd like to be able to speak foreign languages. No, I think it's a gift to be good at music or foreign languages. And the two things that in my career would have been quite useful at times, I'm not very good at them. Do you play discs a lot?

Presenter1:49

The family play records all the time, but I mean with my fourteen year old daughter, an eleven year old daughter and another one of eight, they are certain tunes that get rather repeated a lot of times. I can imagine. Did you find it difficult to choose your eight for the desert island to last a long, long time? I did, yes. I found it very, very difficult. I mean, as I say, I can't remember the names of a lot of tunes. My wife said, let me choose them for you. I said, no, no, I'm doing it. I want to choose them. Two or three of them I was able to choose straight away, but to say right, those eight I'm going to take with me. It's a totally different thing. I thought I'm going to need different tunes, some for when I feel great and I feel happy, and some when I feel miserable and I want to make myself feel happy, so I'm going to have to choose, you know. What's the first one? American Pie. It's I don't know why it's my favourite. I've been up and down the motorway so many times with my circus. I this tune just seems to get me going at about 70 mile an hour and I didn't say more.

Speaker 32:41

But I knew I was out of luck for the day.

Speaker 32:47

Music dies

Speaker 32:50

I started singing Bye, buying this American pie Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye and singing This'll be the day that I die

Speaker 22:50

I started s

Speaker 33:05

This'll be the day that I die.

Presenter3:09

Don McLean, American Pie. Where were you born, Jerry? I was born in Carr Shorten, in Surrey. And your father worked in the city? My father was a stock jobber i in the city, in the stock exchange. One of a large family, have you brothers and sisters? No, no, I've got one sister, and she's a trained nurse, and she's got four daughters and a family and they live in Hampshire.

Gerry Cottle3:21

Clown up

Presenter3:27

No, I've got a large family now. I've got four children of my own. I like large families. I mean, I think we might even have some more yet. Good.

Gerry Cottle3:34

But

Presenter3:34

Do you remember seeing your first circus? Yes, I do.

Gerry Cottle3:37

I will

Presenter3:39

I was eight. Were you excited? I can't quite remember. I can remember the programme, and I've got a copy of the programme which I've collected since. It was Jack Hilton's Circus at Earl's Court. The minute I saw that circus, I went home and we lived in Wallington then and put a little circus together. But my best memories of circuses are the the kind of travelling circuses. And I can remember seeing the Lord George Sanger's circus in its last years, after its heyday of the early part of this century, travelling round places like Tolworth and Mitcham, you know, all within distance of where I lived. Were you intended for the city?

Gerry Cottle4:05

Yeah, all with

Presenter4:09

I don't know. I mean my great grandfather, my father's father, he was in the city.

Presenter4:14

I'd never really showed a lot of interest and my father, I think because I wasn't interested, he didn't push me. Uh right from the age of seeing my first circus I had one total ambition, which I'm very grateful that I had that.

Presenter4:26

to own a circus. I never wanted to be the greatest juggler, trapeze artist. I just wanted to be the big boss. Did you tell your father? Yes, and I mean I told my mother as well

Presenter4:36

My father was quite easy go. He was a very successful businessman, but he was easy go. My mother had other plans for me and I think it was a kind of battle with my father not on my side but more reasonable. And my mother wanted me to get some proper training, get rid of my silly ideas, do something concrete and recognise.

Gerry Cottle4:48

In a m

Presenter4:56

You know, the circus would go out before I was old enough to do it. There's a story that as a kid you ran away and and had to be fetched back from the circus.

Gerry Cottle4:59

Is it

Presenter5:03

Well I did, yes. I mean it's it all sounds rather fairy tale.

Presenter5:07

We lived near Chesterton Zoo and there was a small family circus there and they taught me a lot and I used to go there on my school holidays and the last couple of years I was at school I cheated every summer and went to the circus instead of going to school. My father I think had an income. My mother didn't know. But then they just wouldn't let me leave school. I had to take my G C E's, go to college and I mean I was kind of earmarked for a civil engineer. Uh maybe it would have been interesting.

Presenter5:30

But I just wanted to join the circus. I lost complete interest in everything else, so I had to prove a point. And in the middle of the winter, there was still a circus going on in Newcastle, up in the north, I instead of going to school one Saturday morning, I got on the train and went to Newcastle.

Presenter5:45

Snow everywhere. Very little money on me. I mean, I hadn't really planned it properly. I mean I'm a much better organiser now, I hope. Went up to Newcastle, stayed up there for four or five days. I left my mother a note.

Presenter5:57

I didn't ring them for four or five days, then I run them and they were both very sensible. Mum and Dad said, Look, come home, talk it over, see the headmaster. If you're really determined to join the circus, join it now. Maybe in two years' time you'll be fed up with it.

Gerry Cottle6:09

What did they say?

Gerry Cottle6:11

Well

Presenter6:12

I'd known them for a long time because having been at the the family circus at Chester Zoo, I'd gradually got to know circus people and they said to me, Are you old enough to join? But they didn't ask many questions and they kind of said to me, Well, this is a silly time to join. I mean, we finish at the end of this week, then we lay off for four or five weeks before we go on the summer tour and I said, Well, I've only come for a week. Yeah, you know, do you mind? Can I have a part-time job? And um

Gerry Cottle6:34

Mind, can I

Presenter6:36

So we're strange. I mean, we have to be a little bit more careful now, but I don't ask a lot of questions. As long as a lad comes along and he looks clean and tidy, if he's been with another circus, one of my people will know him. You you weigh people up. We don't ask a lot of questions, but, you know, at the same time we we just have feelings about it. So you didn't stick your week out? Well I did stick the week out. Yes, I stayed and they pulled the circus down on the Saturday night at the theatre, took it out of the theatre at Newcastle and I got a lift back to where the circus was based in the Midlands, then went back home and then sorted out and then Mum and Dad let me leave and I left at Easter instead of leaving in the summer. Right. Your second record.

Presenter7:11

Circus is very much parades and entrances and it's my whole life and Rodetzky March is a lovely circus tune that's used for parade and entrances and uh I think that would be one of my favorites.

Presenter8:22

The Rodetsky March by Johann Strauss Sr. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter8:28

So you are back home after your week of glory.

Presenter8:32

And after that you were allowed to go and work in the circus? Yes, I mean a meeting with the headmaster and you know long talks and they said, Look, if you're really determined, go and join the circus now.

Gerry Cottle8:34

Yeah.

Speaker 38:34

Yeah.

Presenter8:41

And then uh hopefully within two years you'll be fed up and then you've still got time to get further education and a proper career. And it was the Chessington Circus you joined? No, no, I joined the circus that I run away with which is still going, a family show called Robert Brothers Circus. They were quite good to me but I they didn't teach me what I really wanted to. I mean I'd already learned a little bit of juggling and still walking at the Chessington Circus. I wanted to travel. That's why I didn't go with the Chessington Circus.

Speaker 39:05

Yeah.

Presenter9:05

I was taught more to just carry seat boards and do the work and pick up the rubbish. So that lasted a year. I mean, I took a year's contract and I stayed the year. It was the next year that I joined a small family circus in the north of England called Gandy's Circus. Yes. Very, very small circus. You had to do much more varied jobs. I loved it. Joe Gandy, he had a couple of sons. One of them was very young then. He had another son. He wasn't interested in my age. I didn't actually take his son's place, but he just let me do what I liked. When I say let me do what I like, if I could do a bit of juggling, he put me in. I wanted to be a clown, I became a clown. I wanted to do a bit of far eating. I did a bit of far-eating. He took me with him to do the publicity, to book the sites off the Working Men's Club or the Farmer or the Council. I just loved it there. I mean, it was a small family show. We were doing one or two day stands nearly all the time. But it was a good background, a good experience. Yes, indeed. Joe didn't hide anything from me. He's a very shrewd old showman. Very shrewd.

Gerry Cottle9:54

Yeah.

Presenter9:58

And when the circus was off the road you had to do jobs at Christmas and so on. What did you do then? Well, by that time I could do a juggling act, but it wasn't very good. And I mean the first few years in the winter I actually worked for Kirby's Flying Bally. Doing what?

Presenter10:13

Well pulling the wire that made Peter Pan fly. What fun? Well not really, not when you're doing it twice a day and you're just pulling the wire. But no, I mean we we used to work at the Scarlet Theatre and in those days, I mean we had a 16 week tour with Peter Pan. Yes. It was great. I mean I did that. Which Peter Pan's did you fly? Julia Lockwood. Yeah. Dawn Adams. I remember Alastair Simm was Captain Hook one of the seasons because the first year I did Peter Pan.

Gerry Cottle10:17

Really, not when you

Gerry Cottle10:20

Following

Gerry Cottle10:31

Yeah.

Presenter10:39

I made a fatal mistake of pulling the wrong wire and instead of Peter Pan flying this great big bookwing came up and just landed at Alastair Simmons' feet and I thought he... Well, I thought he'd really, you know, say something to me. And he just laughed and kind of shrugged, you know, rolled his eyes. But Alastair Simms was the only Captain Hook. I mean, somebody told me afterwards that Ron Moody was as good, if not better. And you you just get your own favourites. But I also did the juggling act in Pantomime after I'd done Peter Pan for a few years.

Gerry Cottle10:49

Thought he was sick.

Presenter11:10

My juggling had got a lot better. It wasn't marvellous and I I played in pantomime.

Presenter11:15

Awesome. Weird and wonderful places. I mean some are very good, like the Civic Theatre, Barnsley, the um Playhouse Louth in Lincolnshire.

Presenter11:23

Why aren't we laughing? It was work. And then I did a ladding with Tommy Trindra at De Montford Hall, Leicester. That was that must have been fun.

Gerry Cottle11:32

Yeah.

Presenter11:33

Yes, I I think sometimes I I preferred the smaller shows, you know, because it was

Presenter11:38

It was great fun. I mean, y you were a show when you went to the Playhouse Louth and they never had anything else, you know, let alone Red Riding Hood.

Presenter11:45

With a circus scene. Go to have another record, number three. I love Bux Fizz. One of the girls in Bux Fizz, Jay Aston, was with our circus for a few months.

Presenter11:54

They're full of life and I think I'll need cheering up when I'm on my own so I've chose Bucksfizz and one of their tunes London Town.

Speaker 212:01

It's all around, I really wish I'd stayed home.

Speaker 212:06

Punches knocks me down. Looks like I'm all alone.

Speaker 212:11

I just arrived, cause this becomes

Speaker 312:14

Uh

Speaker 212:14

When I'm the

Speaker 312:14

Uh

Speaker 312:15

In London every time.

Speaker 312:18

Getting into London Town!

Presenter12:30

London Town by Buck Spheres. So you were working pantomimes at Christmas, Circus during the summer and autumn. Was it always at the back of your mind that one day you were going to have your own show? Oh, always. I mean, for me, even before I left school, I mean, when I was about ten or eleven, I used to have a friend who was a bit older than me, a friend called Billy Wilde, who did a cowboy act. That wasn't his real name, but it was his name then. And I used to go up by train to Victoria and we used to plan out the programme of Cotton and Wilde Circus and all the rest of it. No, I mean, it was just a total ambition from when I was, you know, eight of eight. Even a very small one needs capital, and quite a lot of capital.

Gerry Cottle13:00

Now

Gerry Cottle13:04

But

Presenter13:07

How did you start? How I started my father was very, very good for me. I had a lot of understanding with my father and uh he was prepared to lend me five hundred pound. Um through having done Peter Pan with Kirby's Flying Bally, mister Kirby said, Do you want to go to Israel and do Peter Pan in Hebrew?

Presenter13:25

I didn't really want to leave circus. I didn't mind the theatre, but I didn't really like working backstage and not being part of the show. I said sure and I mean nobody else would do it, so I was able to get very good money from it and I went to Israel for virtually a year and did Peter Pan in Hebrew. It's quite difficult. I wasn't very good at the music cues and I wasn't very good at Hebrew. But anyway, I earned good money in that one year in Israel. Then I went abroad again for Curvyt and did um the Flying Bally for an American I show tour in Europe.

Gerry Cottle13:36

Yeah.

Presenter13:50

I actually made my money to put the circus on.

Presenter13:53

Not out of the circus. I mean, you can get steady money with the circus. It's quite difficult to earn big money unless you are the top actor. I was very much a jack of all trades and master of none. I then got a couple of partners who were much older than me. One the director of a big supermarket chain and he just liked circus and he wanted to be involved and he was willing to put so much up and the the other one was um a gentleman who had a marquee firm that inherited a

Presenter14:18

A tent. A circus tent. We went out totally undercapitalised. Where did you start? What was your very first performance? Our very first performance. I mean, the circus we called it the Embassy Circus. Horrible name when you think back of it. I don't know why it was called the Embassy Circus. They wouldn't let you call it Jerry Cottle's Circus right at the beginning. I hadn't even thought of calling it Jerry Cottle's. I mean, to me my name just didn't mean anything and it didn't sound like a circus name. I mean people have since said to me, Where did you get your name? You know, it's good. I suppose it's only because I've seen it stuck everywhere. We started at Petersfield in Hampshire.

Presenter14:50

And then we went down to Portsmouth and along the south coast very early in the season.

Presenter14:54

It it was just an absolute disaster, totally undercapitalized. I'd booked all these people who I thought were my friends and who'd helped me with my new circus, but it was all wrong.

Presenter15:03

But I had um a friend with me, Brian Austin.

Gerry Cottle15:03

But I

Presenter15:06

And after this first circus only lasted eight weeks, we just had to pack up. We went to work for another circus. Because we were down and out, they wouldn't give us a proper wage. And Brian and I kind of said to each other, Let's start from now. We've got nothing to lose. And we bought a tent for £60. This was in 1970, which isn't that long ago. £60, £20 down and a pound a week. A very small tent, surely. Oh, a marquee, a flower show tent, we call it. Some people call it other things. And I mean, it was a rotten old tent, but it really got us on our feet. We started with this flower show tent, one lorry that we paid £40 for, which we've still kept. We're going to keep that forever. And after the first couple of weeks, we went to towns where all the other small circuses have been. Then we suddenly thought, we're going wrong here. And this is where I've started, and I've done it all my career. I've gone to places where nobody else goes. So after the first fortnight, we went to the Isle of Portland, which is next to Weymouth. Sounds stupid. But I mean, people don't cross over to go to the circus from Portland to Weymouth. We then went in the middle of the um

Presenter16:03

Dartmoor and Exmoor, with his tiny little circus which with Brian and I and our two wives and um his younger brother and I don't know, right from the word go we started to do quite well to do all the jobs.

Gerry Cottle16:14

There are only

Presenter16:16

Oh, I mean we were doing one day stands. I mean Brian and his brother would put the tent up, one of our wives would sell the tickets and um I'd be off doing the publicity and talking to the farmer and getting the grounds. I was always very publicity conscious. And then you put on make up and did the show? Oh yes, we did quite a good show. I mean we were quite lucky the BBC came along and made a documentary with Trevor Philpott. We didn't get much money for it.

Presenter16:37

But it was good for us because they showed it in seventy one the next year and we were able to use it and say to the local council, Look, we're only a small circus, but we were good enough for a documentary to be made about us. We got a lot of publicity very quickly. We jumped all over the place. You had a few animals?

Gerry Cottle16:50

You had a few.

Presenter16:52

The first two weeks we didn't have any animals. After we've been open two weeks, we were able to buy two Shetland ponies and we had a couple of dogs. My wife made a dog act up. And the next year we bought some wolves. The major

Presenter17:04

act on the bill was the high wire walk over the wolf's cage. That was you? No, no, that was my partner. No. I wasn't quite as daring as that. I did a lot of the comedy and I did the juggling act.

Gerry Cottle17:10

Yeah.

Presenter17:14

My partner did the wire walking and uh knife throwing and all that. No, it worked well. We stuck together for four years, it was good.

Gerry Cottle17:18

Good stuff.

Presenter17:20

Well fine, you'd start it, so let's break off record number four. The Beatles. I love all the Beatles tunes and I'd I'd choose the Help.

Speaker 317:29

I need somebody help, not just anybody. You know I need someone.

Speaker 317:39

I was younger, so much younger than today I never needed anybody's help in any way

Speaker 317:49

But now these days are gone and I'm not so self-assured Now I find a change of mind and open up the door

Presenter17:58

Help by the Beatles. So we've got you started, Jerry, in the circus as a proprietor of a small show. Now you had to get a bigger one. Right from the word go, we were very lucky. And we did in the second year, after kind of just going to small villages where they hadn't had circus before, we took our circus, which was trading then as Cottlan Austin's circus. We took it to the Channel Islands. We went to Guernsey. They hadn't had a circus there for 20 odd years. We did fantastic business. On the way back from Guernsey, this is rather like going to a desert island. We went to Alderney for one day, you know, one of the smaller Channel Islands. But they were delighted to see you. Delighted, lovely people, made us welcome, did fabulous business.

Gerry Cottle18:22

We could find

Presenter18:35

We grew very quickly. One, because I think I did a lot of the publicity and getting different sites and I brought here a family circus which we were then into the London boroughs which hadn't been done before. It was always been a big circus or the Christmas circus. Brian Austin, my partner, in those days, he was very good with his hands and he made new seats and he was able to make a lot of things. We didn't have to put any work out to anybody else. And we had a good team. We grew very quickly and we grew

Gerry Cottle18:47

Don't think Critical.

Presenter18:59

Up to seventy four when we were we had so many people working for us we started running two shows and we tried an experimental show called Circus and Ice where we involved an ice ring with the circus.

Presenter19:10

We didn't do very well. I wanted to carry on and I thought if we got bigger and better we'd gradually get very well known. My partner Brian Austin said, No, we've got to call it today. We split up but the beauty of us splitting up, we've both remained very good friends since then. I mean Brian has just made me all my new tent and seats for this new show I'm doing now.

Speaker 319:27

Hmm.

Presenter19:27

We both had different ambitions. I wanted to go overseas and do different things. Brian was very happy with, you know, a very sensible size show. And that's how we've gone along. We've both made good successes of two different things. To capitalise a big circus must be pretty enormous. What does a big tent cost these days? I mean, not just a twenty pound flower show tent the kind that you use today. Well, you can add a few naughts. I mean, the tent I've got now is not the biggest tent I've had. I mean, the biggest tent I had was the one I used for the Circus World Championships and some of the television work we did at one time. That would be thirty or forty thousand pounds imported from Italy. The one I've got now is over twenty thousand pound.

Gerry Cottle20:00

The one

Presenter20:03

When you had your biggest circus, how many people did you have on the strings? Well, I had the biggest circus at that time I was running two shows. I wasn't content to run one. I had one show which had about a hundred odd people working for it and in the show. And my second show, which was very large as well, that had 60 or 70. I was employing over 200 people in 77 and 78. I loved it. I loved running a big circus.

Gerry Cottle20:23

I love running a big size.

Presenter20:25

Was it at that time you were doing the BBC Seaside specials? Yes, we started those in 73, 74 and w I did one while we were Cottle in Austin and then I did them from 75 onwards. They were very good for us because they weren't just a purely a circus show in a tent. So I mean people didn't see, but we got an awful lot of publicity. I mean we put the tent up in different places like Great Yarmouth, Blackpool, Scarborough. We put a couple of circus acts in. Our tent was a basis for a summer variety show. There was an awful lot of interest with all the DJs from the radio. It was a very popular programme for two or three years and it it gave us a lot of publicity without us realising it because people suddenly go, oh you know, filmed in Jerry Cottle's circus tent. Yes. And it did us a lot of good.

Gerry Cottle20:51

I don't

Gerry Cottle21:04

Yeah.

Presenter21:06

Record number five. Record number five is Summertime City, the signature tune of Seaside Special. It's going to remind me of all those lovely summer times because we had good fun with the BBC crew and everything.

Speaker 321:17

Come on down, it's summertime City Baby get down to the summertime Come on down It's summertime sound Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on Kick off your shoes, cause summertime City ain't got the summertime blues

Presenter21:43

Summertime City, Mike Batt and New Edition.

Presenter21:47

Have you played overseas? I'm I'm not talking about Orkney or Alderney. You have been a long way overseas with the circus. We've been to some very good places. I mean, we've had trouble in some as well, but

Presenter21:58

It's a fallacy a lot of people think circuses travel overseas all the time but they don't we were the first one to do it for since about 1923 and we first of all got invited to go to the Sultan of Oman's birthday parties and he flew the whole circus out elephants large big top and all the people in two great big transport planes from Stansted Airport that was our first one out on the way back we played Bahrain and Charger

Gerry Cottle22:08

Birthday.

Presenter22:21

Then I had another very nice job. It I don't know, people seem to come to England because they've either been educated or trained in England.

Presenter22:28

and pick an English circus out, and we've been picked out every time. Then we went to Iceland, Rečikiewicz. Hadn't ever had a circus for about forty years. It had a small one, I think, Danish show actually played in the air base there.

Presenter22:39

Then we went back to the Middle East again and we went to Sharjah and we went to Iran. You had a bit of trouble in Iran. Bit of trouble. That was the understatement, I think. We just everything went wrong. I mean, we were doing very, very well in England at that time. We had a few foreign jobs. We went to Iran. The moment we arrived there, curfews were put on.

Speaker 322:48

Go on.

Gerry Cottle22:49

Yeah.

Presenter22:58

Soldiers and tanks were on the streets. The revolution. The revolution started. This was in kind of May 78, yes, just before the Shah got disposed at the end of the year.

Gerry Cottle23:04

It's beautiful.

Presenter23:06

It just all went wrong. We had a twelve week contract, we just had to buy it off. I said buy it off. We just flew everybody home, paid them out of our trading, and it got us into a lot of trouble. It was a very difficult one. Did you get paid from Iran? Never got a penny from Iran. I mean, we took international advice and we were all going to wait and see what happened. Of course, when it went the way it did, everybody said don't waste your time or money and you know, take it to international court. So we just had to swallow that. But it it made it a problem because at that time in England I was doing quite well, but no way could I make that money up. How much did you lose? Over a hundred thousand. Did you? And I suppose if one had looked at it purely as a business exercise, which one doesn't with circus, I mean if you give a promise and you engage an artist even for a twelve week season in Iran

Gerry Cottle23:40

List

Presenter23:50

and it all falls flat. You still pay them. You work very much on a gentleman's agreement with your artist and all your people especially, but also with your supplies as much as you can.

Speaker 323:53

You

Presenter24:02

Now it is a problem. It was a very good lesson. I mean, we've made up for it since then. I mean, we've been able to go out the country again to the Far East and made up for it.

Gerry Cottle24:04

Yeah.

Presenter24:09

You made up for it with a trip to Hong Kong and uh Singapore? Oh, it was lovely. We've just come back from that about nine months ago. We've just spent the last two years in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore. Great success and the total opposite to Iran. No problems and very enjoyable time, marvellous audiences. And we were able to take a great circus out there. I mean we virtually lived out there for two years, which when you can do that rather than just go to a place like Sharjah or Bahrain for two or three weeks, you start to understand the country and get to enjoy it and meet the people and the Far East was you know lovely. You talked of one of your experiments, a circus on ice. You also had a rock and roll circus. Yes, that was a short-lived experiment. It was after we got into trouble with Iran and we had a few problems and we had this bright idea, rock and roll circus. I mean one name stuck out a mile and we thought Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Circus. We took it on the road, we did a lot of homework with it. Gary was a fabulous performer and lovely fellow to get on with and the glitter band and all his people. It just didn't work. I just don't know why it was. It was about three years ago. It just did not work. It was a shame because it could have worked and in fact

Gerry Cottle25:09

Yeah.

Presenter25:11

Funny enough it would probably work better now because you know Gary's back on the the go and going up the hip parade. It's a shame.

Presenter25:18

Foil, now the record. Obviously a Gary Glitter record. Hello, hello, I'm back again. He was a great showman, Gary.

Presenter25:52

Gary Glitter. Hullo, hello, I'm back again. Now your current show, Jerry, another change of direction, but this this time in a way forced on you. You've got your circus out with no animals.

Presenter26:05

Yes, after being in the Far East we came back to England and we suddenly realized the animal question, the animal rights people, th for 10-15 years there's been a few towns banned where you couldn't take the circus with performing animals. Very much dear little old ladies didn't like the idea and got the council to ban the circus. We come back from the Far East and we suddenly realise the whole thing's snowballed and exploded and we've now got

Presenter26:27

Most of the London boroughs do not allow circus with performing animals, and other big cities, places like Bournemouth and Portsmouth and Sheffield and Ipswich The sad thing is with no animals the circus doesn't smell like a circus, does it? Well we've still got popcorn and candy for us. No, it is a job to sell a circus with no animals, but

Presenter26:46

It's made us do an awful lot of things. The whole show is totally different. No ringmaster and all very much faster than it used to be. It's great. We're getting lovely reviews and people are enjoying it. We've made it very romantic. We've had a canvas tent made. We've made the seats all the same price. We've brought the audience close into the ring. We've made it intimate. A lot of it's been forced upon us, but A lot of it's come out of it because of the no animals and the way things are and we really enjoy doing the show and it's working, it's definitely a very fast colourful show.

Speaker 327:14

Ready.

Gerry Cottle27:14

Pretty fun.

Presenter27:16

Another innovation, you started the first British circus school on the lines of Russia and China.

Gerry Cottle27:17

No.

Presenter27:22

Yes, I mean at the moment the British Circus School travels with us. We we started earlier this year and we did auditions. We had so many kids come along. When I say kids, anybody from the age of sixteen upwards because you're not meant to train them for a school until they're sixteen. They're street performers, people who've been in theatre, people who work backstage in theatre, people who just want to join a circus. It's very difficult to choose. You know the beauty of them. Some of them aren't that talented. Some of them have learnt very, very quickly, probably quicker than a lot of circus people can. They've all got enthusiasm and fun about them and they put a lot of life and soul into the show. I mean

Speaker 327:37

Good.

Presenter27:56

They are working for the circus because they want to be in it, not because their great-grandfather did it. And

Gerry Cottle28:01

Uh

Presenter28:02

They're willing to change and I mean

Presenter28:04

You know the whole circus has become a group, a community, where it's not just my ideas. I've got Basil producing the show, Chris, my manager, with his ideas. We're all working together and these students, we call them the students. How many students? We've got 15 of them travelling with the circus and they really do help make the show go with a bang. And you w you work them hard? Are they practicing and rehearsing every morning? We work them very hard. Yeah, I mean we start at 10 o'clock every morning, practice till lunchtime. In the afternoon we kind of split the practice up where special skills practice. You know, if you want to practice a wire, that's your time or the trapeze. Then they do two shows a day. Very often we have a kind of voluntary period at night where if you want to join the new Springboard Act, you know, you practice after the show 10 o'clock at night, 10 till 11. And then, I mean, when the show moves every week, they all help take the tent down, put it up. Some of them drive the small vans with caravans behind. It's a good spirit. It's working better than I dared hope. I mean, there's been one or two hiccups where...

Gerry Cottle28:36

Or the

Presenter29:01

People thought, oh, we're going to become famous very quickly. We had a few hiccups. We're now halfway through the season. We've done twenty weeks. We've done six weeks before that practice. I think everybody realizes what it's all about. That's really the way to learn the job, isn't it?

Gerry Cottle29:12

That's really

Presenter29:14

Practically, like a it's a lot of discipline, a lot of hard work.

Gerry Cottle29:15

Practice it.

Presenter29:17

And two of your own children are in the show? Yes, well, in fact three of my two eldest daughters are in it full time. Uh they've always been taught a little bit of circus work apart from going to school and they enjoy it. They love the kind of spirit of learning with other youngsters. And my youngest daughter who's only seven or eight she's crept into it. I mean she's volunteered for everything and taught herself to do the splits and dance and she loves it.

Gerry Cottle29:35

Uh

Presenter29:39

Right, you've got to record number seven. This new circus it relies very much on its choice of music and we we've tried to use romantic and circusy type tunes and a a tune that's always associated with the romantic dream of the trapeze going backwards and forwards is a gold and silver wolfs and I'd like to take that with me.

Presenter30:43

The Gold and Silver Walls, Villy Boskowski conducts the Johann Strauss Orchestra of Vienna.

Presenter30:49

You can do pretty well all the jobs in a circus. Could you look after yourself on a desert island?

Presenter30:54

I think so, yes. Rig up a shelter? Yes, definitely. Live off the land? I haven't had to do it, but I think I'm practical enough. Because of my foreign trips and kind of starting from scratch and always being very practical, I think I could. Mm. I'd miss the people. I'd miss the company more than anything else. I think obviously anybody would. Would you try to escape? Do you know anything about boats, navigation?

Presenter31:16

I know very little about boating, but I think I'd probably have a go. I think I'd probably be a little bit patient and kind of wait a whole summer and winter and see when the tides and the weather's good. Your last record. Last record, Entry the Gladiators. My whole life is circus, you know, I I chose it, but I do love it. And Entry the Gladiators really is the most traditional circus tune that you hear all over the world.

Presenter32:35

Entry of the Gladiators and very generously you've chosen a recording by Billy Smart's television circus band. Your own band hasn't done any recording yet. Not my latest band. I've had many different bands, but no, that's the best I've heard the music played, how it should be played, apart from my own present band. Right.

Presenter32:51

If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played, which would it be?

Presenter32:55

I think it'd be Don McLean and American Pie. And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to the island, one thing of no practical use. I'm going to take my juggling clubs. I mean, I was never a marvellous juggler, that's why I ended up being the circus boss. But it's something I could practise for eight hours a day. If I really got bored, I could get better and better. Three juggling clubs. Only three? Five, I'm sure you can manage. I have seen somebody do nine. I mean? Maybe I'll take seven, that's my lucky number. I learned to do seven juggling clubs. All right. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already provided.

Gerry Cottle33:17

Yeah.

Presenter33:26

I've got to take something with a bit of light relief and there's a lovely American book called I Love You Honey But the Season's Over about a girl from a normal Midwest town who joins a circus and gets given a nickname and teased and all the jokes played on her but at the end of the season she really realizes what a great life it was. And I think that would be a fun book because you've got to have a fun book with Shakespeare. I love you honey but the season's over. Who's it by? Connie Clausen.

Gerry Cottle33:48

I love you, honey.

Presenter33:51

Right. And thank you, Jerry Cottle, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you for inviting me. Goodbye, everyone.

Gerry Cottle34:06

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.