“I trusted him completely,” says Tracy, who ran away with the circus as a 16-year-old and today is ringmaster of her own show, Circus Funtasia. “I think because I was young, I didn’t have much fear. I’d try anything.”
Growing up in a tiny Welsh village, Tracy had no idea that a life of spotlights and sequins awaited her.
When she was 15, she took a weekend job looking after the horses of local stunt rider Gerard Naprous, who went on to work on films such as Rob Roy and TV series Game of Thrones.
One summer, Gerard announced that he was joining Gandey’s Circus for a short engagement and Tracy went with him as horse groom.
“I didn’t even know what a circus was!” she laughs. “We were meant to be there for four weeks, but I loved it so much that I went home and said, ‘Mum, I’m going to join the circus.’ Mum was mortified. She tried to talk me out of it, but my heart was set. I packed my bag, they put me on a train and off I went. Later on, once my parents had visited the show and seen what it was about, they loved it.”
One of Tracy’s first jobs was parading around the ring with a snake draped around her shoulders.
“I was a little bit scared of snakes,” Tracy confesses. “But you get used to it. Then people start to teach you things. I learned a bit of trapeze, and trick riding on horses.”
Her speciality became twirling and throwing poses on a vertical rope called the corde lisse.
“Now I'm a ringmistress and stay firmly on the ground,” Tracy adds.
As well as travelling all over the UK, Tracy performed across the globe in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai.
In 2000, Tracy was touring with Gandey’s sister show, Circus Starr, a non-profit organisation that gives all its tickets away to ill or disadvantaged children as well as raising money for hospices and women’s refuges.
It was there that she met her partner Julio, a member of a visiting Bulgarian acrobatic troupe.
The danger with circus romances is that couples will be separated at the end of the season as work takes them to different shows and different countries. Tracy and Julio decided that wasn’t going to happen to them.
“As soon as we got together, I knew that wherever he was going to go, I was going to go and vice versa,” Tracy says.
At the end of the season, Julio joined the circus full time as a tent master, so they could stay together.
Julio’s skill at building and moving the big top came in handy when he and Tracy decided to start Circus Funtasia 10 years ago.
“We said if we can get a loan from the bank we’ll open a circus and if we can’t, we’ll carry on working for other people,” Tracy recalls. “We got the loan, and that money went very quickly, buying seats and a few vehicles.”
Their first show was in the Staffordshire village of Penkridge and was a box office disaster.
“We died!” Tracy laughs. “We didn’t do very much business because we didn’t do the postering right, we didn’t do the publicity right. We were very naive, but we learned as we went along and it gradually picked up.”
Tracy’s daughter, Nia, has been part of the show since she was four.
“She’d go in the ring with her dad’s troupe and dance with them. Then he’d pick her up and do a jump with her. She loved it,” says her proud mum.
Now 19, Nia is the show’s juggler. She also edits the show’s music and programs the lighting effects.
Nia’s most daring feat is standing inside the Globe of Death while a motorbike loops the loop all around her, missing her by inches.
Travelling from town to town with a circus is unlike any other branch of show business, says Tracy, who lives beside her big top in a 52-foot-long wagon that she likens to an apartment on wheels.
“We all do everything. We’re in the ring one minute, selling popcorn the next, then pulling down the tent in wellies and overalls after that. The worst things are the rain and mud. The best thing is the audience. You can’t beat the feeling they give you at the end of the show.
“It’s a way of life, but it’s a wonderful and exciting way of life. It’s very sociable, like one big family. Especially in the summer. Everyone sits outside together. We have barbecues. It’s lovely.”
Her plans for the next 10 years? “Just to keep going and enjoy every minute of it.”
For more tales of life in the big top, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.
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