[OT] More old d-i-y'ers stuff

Now to do with d-i-y, but how many of the oldies got to watch a lion-tamer?

The travelling animal acts had been reduced from lion-tamers to dogs barking out the answers to maths questions for me ...

I am absolutely not sure. I think I did go to a circus in the 1950s. I vaguely remeber horses with plumes on and clowns

Possibly some high wire stuff. Might well have been a lion tamer

I certainly did and got bitten by his dog when we were wandering around the cages as kids and didn't notice the dog under the cage until it bit me

Still popular in France, there was a circus with a lion tamer near our marina here (in Hautmont) just last year.

Annual school trip to Bertram Mills circus at Olympia.>

Several times. Touring circuses regularly visited.

Chris

we used to go to Bertram Mills circus - in a tent. Yes, there was a lion tamer. and - on holiday in Russia in 2006 - saw similar in Moscow State Circus. (A lot has changed in 20 years)

Not a Lion but the father of a barmaid in a Hampshire Village was the local Policeman , up the road was one of the premises the Chipperfields Family used to hold their animals both for the Circus and other places they had like Southampton Zoo or hired out as film props.One late evening he came across a baby Hippopotamus that had escaped , reporting in to his colleagues at the bigger town of Andover they initially though he was jesting but had to change their minds when he put the animal which was about the size of a small pig in the back of the Van and took it in for them to deal with. Both premises and the Zoo have long gone as the publics perception of on animal welfare changed.

GH

I recall going to a circus where, while the acrobats were performing overhead, a cage was constructed which filled the entire ring (which was larger that the entire tent of most modern circuses). Then the lions and tigers were let in. (I don't remember how 'tame" they were.)

I remember about six elephants walking along the main street of Chippenham.

Long time back, but yes.

Also saw Mr. Pastry doing a slapstick act. Probably very few people today remember who he was.

Cheers

Dave R

I heard of him, but never saw him.

If it counts, I saw several PROPER circuses in the mid-1950s. Ones with elephants and lions and tigers. Those latter two were brought into the ring via a temporary human-height tunnel of what looked like chromed steel bars and into a large circular cage filling the central space.

On reflection, those precaustions may have just been for show and reassurance - a fully-grown lion or tiger would surely have just pushed them apart.

Being the 1950s, the circus then always ended with a wild west show with a mini-story of a capture of an Annie-Oakley / Dale Evans type female character by the Injuns and rescued from their camp (tied to a totem pole) by the heroic cowboys (who probably also herded the big cats earlier in the show).

I was vaguely familiar with him from TV (c. 1955/56) and was once taken to see a film featuring his character (if it's of any interest, at the old Hippodrome, West Derby Road, Liverpool). I can't remember the plot, but there was a section wherein Pastry and some others were camping in a farm field and one member of the group went to the farmhouse to buy some eggs for breakfast. Pastry remarked that he liked the brown ones. That's my only recollection of the film.

Change of subject but talking of lions, I watched Patrick McGoohan being filmed in a travelling lion cage under Admiralty Arch in either 1968 or

If it was filmed in 1968/69, you never will.

The first TX of The Prisoner ended in late 1967!

Pass.

He was in a fair number of films, often as a bad guy. Not counting Columbo, everyone has been the bad guy in that.

I should imagine that anyone who went to a circus in the 1950s saw a lion tamer. I remember seeing a beared lady looking miserable* but that must have been at a fair.

• Presumably there hadn't been many takers for whatever shed was offering in exchange for cash.

Most people posting here weren't born in the 1950s, hence the question.