A Ringmaster

"Everything that happens in the circus depends on the ringmaster Norman Barrett. And Norman Barrett should know. He's been a ringmaster for twenty years—for the past fifteen years at Blackpool Circus, where he works for six months a year and has a house.

Norman Barrett says he became a ringmaster with Bertram Mills Circus when his "uncle", who was a ringmaster at the time, died. "He wasn't really my uncle. To children who are brought up in the circus, every adult is your uncle or your aunt. He was with my father's circus, so I automatically called him uncle."

Norman's father had been a farmer in a village in Yorkshire, but he'd trained animals all his life. When a small circus visited the village, he invited the performers back to see his animals and ended up by joining them. The next season he started his own circus. Norman joined the circus when he left school at sixteen. "I've never wanted to do anything else," he says. "I'll still be working for the circus when I retire."

He trained and presented horses, trained and presented dogs, did a comedy act. He says, "I think it's because I've done quite a few of the acts that I understand other people's problems. If I haven't done them, I have a very good knowledge of them, so that if an act is having problems I'm able to help out in the ring."

In his years as ringmaster he has had more than his fair share of problems. He remembers a day when a man fell off his horse while he was riding round the ring and broke his leg. On the same day, another man who had been riding a bicycle broke his ankle as he jumped off, and a third man fell over him and smashed his elbow. The important thing when difficulties arise, he says, is to put the audience and performers at ease.