Auld Acquaintance

Scrolling through the computer files the other night, I came across some old friends I hadn’t seen for years – had largely forgotten about – and was able to spend a pleasurable hour or so renewing our mutual acquaintance.

Not long after I started my career as a writer, a friend sent a collection of sketches she’d made when a travelling circus came to town. They were vivid and highly entertaining little drawings: the ringmaster …  trapeze artiste … a clown … the high-wire rider…

And I wrote a set of short poems – or at any rate verses – to go with them, thinking it might be an amusing illustrated book for young readers. Alas, the publisher didn’t.

‘Not poetry!’ they exclaimed, more horrified it seemed than if I’d suggested a volume of pornography. ‘Nobody reads poetry!’

When a second publisher said the same, I assumed the fault was mine, printed the poems out under the title Circus, put them in a folder somewhere, and went on with other things. Another forgotten manuscript left to gather dust

Yet I can’t tell you what joy it gave me to rediscover them  the other night. Siddie the Tumbler.  Elanora the elephant (Her grandmama once carried Rajahs). Mrs Rodriguez, the bareback rider, who doubled as seamstress, ticket-seller, dog-trainer and ice-cream vendor at interval. The man on the flying trapeze (The question is: should I let her go? There is no safety net below.) And the other half-dozen performers .