The Flying Ashtons

Ashton’s Circus:

“We’re older than most towns in Australia”¹

“We’re older than Federation, older than the ANZACS, older than Test Cricket”²

A Roadmap Through the Wastelands

I have my first glimpse of the Road Less Travelled in 1966. I am a scrawny, undertrained, over-enthusiastic would-be classical ballet dancer who has already been rejected for the first intake of the brand-new Australian Ballet School. ‘Go away,’ they say when I present myself at the door of a suitably scruffy hall in inner-city Perth, Western Australia, practice tights, tunic and pumps clasped under an eager, slightly sweaty arm-pit. ‘Go away, you’re too small.’

Too small for what? I think, and am soon bound for Sydney aboard the trans-continental train with my best friend, Gabrielle, an Irish/Scottish actress who has already proved herself in a variety of roles on the boards of Perth’s still new Playhouse Theatre. Both of us are, we fondly imagine, on the road to success and outrageous fortune.

Unsurprisingly, I’m still awaiting my big break in show biz, but along the way, at unexpected forks in the road, I choose the path least likely and end up spending a life-time as a circus performer, circus skills teacher, performance creator, artistic director and sometime circus proprietor. Oh, yes, and animal trainer and elephant rider, just in case you are getting too complacent about this clichéd tale of a girl who runs away to join the circus and are hoping the vexed question of animals in the circus isn’t going to become the, er excuse a further cliché, the elephant in the room. Or should that be “in the big top”?

Speaking of elephants: Tanya surrounded by children of Ashton’s Circus

Of course, the truth is, I never did run away to the circus, but occasionally ran away from, only to find myself running back via a six-year flirtation with academia and various other diverting and profitless activities. Circus, it seemed, was to be my life, in bits and pieces, in huge bites and small gulps, in absences and regrets, a variegated motley of experience and people, places and learning.

‘You should write about your life,’ misguided folk tell me repeatedly, ‘it sounds sointeresting.’ ‘Ah,’ I respond, ‘not me, but I do know people who really have led interesting lives.’ Another truth is, I’m just a recorder of tales, a spinner of truth into fiction, a shameless miner of other people’s experiences.

So what happens in the antediluvian year of 1966? I answer an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Saturday edition. Somebody, it seems, is looking for a female to join an acrobatic act. “Experience desirable. Training provided. Must be under 6 stone (38.10 kilos) in weight.” At last, something I am built for. Is this destiny calling?

I am no acrobat, but the thing that shouts “this is your big opportunity!” is the weight specification. In this area I am highly qualified; at the time I weigh in at 83 pounds or 37.65 kilos. Tap-dancing and, unfortunately, acrobatic tumbling had been severely frowned upon at my strict classical ballet school where I was trained rigorously in the Cecchetti Method by 1948 Australian Ballroom Champions, Ron and Mavis Holdcroft. Not a cart-wheel or a soft-shoe shuffle ever sullied the ballet school although, interestingly, the words “show biz” and “variety” and “professional” were all part of our acquired vocabulary and armed me for a life as an entertainer of sorts.

Ron & Mavis Holdcroft professionally known as Rosewarne & Reynolds

The author on Tonto

My other great passion as a child—aside from reading totally unsuitable books (Lawrence Durrell springs immediately to mind) and writing precociously bad verse—is the world of horses. Another activity, apparently, that is anathema to the correct shaping of a ballet dancer. Somehow or other I still manage to sneak in a rudimentary equestrienne education that nurtures my life-long love of these elegant creatures.

It seemed improbable in those long-ago days that my love of dance and my passion for horses would ever be united and lead, tangentially, to a life in and of the circus. Oh, yes, the circus. How could I forget the yearning created by that miracle, the unexpected and, to a child, unheralded, arrival of The Circus. A long walk for a young girl with short legs, across the Causeway on the Swan River, to the circus lot on the edge of the City of Perth; invariably, it would be raining, a welcome relief in a notoriously drought-prone state.

Ashton’s Circus: childhood nostalgia

Caravan built “in-house” on tour

Ashton’s Circus. Bullen Bros’ Circus. Sole Bros’ Circus. Once, maybe, as a very young child, a visit to the legendary Wirth Bros’ Circus ….

A seed was sown.

A memory.

 A particularly strong memory: I leave the big top during the show to, presumably, go to the toilet. Being outside the tent and listening is as exciting as the light-dappled, bedazzled inside. The sound of the band, muted through the canvas, the smell of the animals, the warm, purposeful feeling of the backyard lot, evokes in my four-year-old heart a nostalgic yearning. Impossible. Surely a young child cannot feel nostalgic? Surely I am too young to yearn for the ineffable? Now, in whimsical moments I wonder, had I “been” there before? I learn that the Welsh have a word for this: Hiraeth, “a spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is the echo of the lost places of our soul’s past and our grief for them. It is in the wind, and the rocks, and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere”.³ 

Sydney proves, as does most of life, to be an entertaining mix of pleasure and despair, a ragbag of experience as we go about our new existence, Gabrielle to her acting auditions (‘Very nice, dear. When we want a Scotch [sic] actress we’ll give you a call’) and I to scanning the “Jobs avail” columns in the gargantuan Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald in the hope that “something interesting” will turn up.  

Preferably in the world of dance.

As it does, but not quite what I imagine.

The “job”, it turns out, is to be trained in acrobatics as a replacement for a spunky blonde tumbler who has run off with her lover. Kay, of the shapely figure, engaging smile, and fascinating eyes (one blue, one green) was a stunning asset for the acrobatic act which is owned and run by a tall, taciturn man with a large and plain Australian face and a gentle, diffident manner. The man is Alfie Warren and, I quickly learn, a living legend. The act is unsurprisingly named “The Flying Warrens”, but surprisingly to this raw recruit, the act in question is a Risley act, the art of juggling humans with one’s feet. What? You may well ask.

The Flying Warrens: Alfie & Kay

The Flying Warrens: Alfie, John Smith & author

At this time, 1967, Risley was an almost dying art in the West. The skill was variously known as “Icarian”, sometimes as an “Antipodean” act; the Warrens were literally Antipodists from the Antipodes. Risley (named for an influential North American 19^th Century acrobat, “Professor” Risley) has recently had a revival, largely due to Cirque du Soleil naming one of their acts “Icarian Games” and “sexing up” this skill first practised, possibly, in ancient Egypt and China. But back in ’60s Australia, the skill is largely kept alive by quiet, self-effacing Alfie, acknowledged as a master “Risley kicker”, the man who spins the acrobats on his magic feet.

The Kelroys: Ernest Kelroy (in pad), Ray Kelroy (on ladder) & Jacqueline Kelroy

Meanwhile, at Ashton’s Circus (owned by Alfie’s cousins, Doug and Phyllis Ashton), we find Phyllis’ brother and father, The Kelroys, and still more cousins, The Seven Ashtons, in Europe and America, also continuing to astound audiences with this unusual skill. Already I am coming to understand that the entire circus world is inter/related.

Alfie is married to Connie, a retired acrobat, a woman who does much to turn me, a callow, aspiring dancer, into a professional tumbling acrobat. Alfie’s mum, Maude, was an Ashton by birth, the granddaughter of James Henry Ashton, the founder of Ashton’s Circus in 1851; 4^th generation Alfie and his siblings are steeped in the skills and traditions of circus.

These are real circus people. My mind whirls. I find it difficult to believe that Alfie’s family had also run their own show, Warren Bros’ Olympic Circus. (I mean, who owns a circus?) Opening in 1925 the tent burnt down in Condoblin, New South Wales; end of that strand of their story. Soon after the Second World War when supplies of everything were still rationed and life was mighty tough, the Warren family took their show on the road again, but lasted only a short while. I am appalled when Alfie tells me their tent is still stored under the family home in suburban Sydney, slowly rotting away as circus tents do when left unloved. It seems an apt metaphor for vanished dreams.

Warren Bros Olympic Circus: Horsewoman Dorrie Warren was also a fine solo trapeze artiste

It doesn’t take me very long to realise that I am the winner of this particular lottery, that I have, literally, fallen on Alfie’s feet. At the back of my brain lies, still, the niggle, the unwelcome thought that I was the only applicant for the job. So what? The tent flap is opened and I am invited to step inside the secret life of Australian circus.

The Secret History

Until recently, many circus folk have been reluctant to “go on the record” and much Antipodean circus history has been lost, become obscured, relegated to fading photo albums and yellowed and crumbling newspaper clippings. Theo Zacchini, Italian master clown long in residence with Ashton’s Circus, scoffs when I offer to help him write his marvellous life-story. ‘For what? I could tell you bullshit, and people they would believe. Pah! Is rubbish!’ So much for that idea.

Everybody loves Master clown, Theo Zacchini, with baby Joseph “Pepe” Ashton, future circus entrepreneur

Due in large part to the work of amateur circus historian Fred Braid OAM and professional historian, Dr Mark Valentine St Leon, much has been recovered and preserved. Indi-published autobiographies by Dolly Lennon⁴ (Lennon Bros Circus), Philip West⁵ (West Family Circus) and Tony Ratcliffe⁶ (Bullen Bros’ Circus, Whirling’s Circus) have added much to our store of knowledge, but the history of circus in Australasia is, to a large extent, the story of the Ashton Circus Dynasty and its long-lasting influence on both the development of a regional circus discourse and the creation in the public imagination of a specific Antipodean circus mythos.

From its foundation in 1851 and into the present times, the name of Ashton’s Circus is wound through and through the annals of recorded and oral local and national history. As a member of Radford’s Royal Circus, the first Colonial circus to delight the locals in Launceston and Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), the talented trick rider, Golding Ashton, soon became known professionally, for reasons obscure, as James Henry Ashton and wooed local audiences with his sparkling equestrian expertise.⁷

James Henry Ashton & Gaynor

James Henry Ashton & daughter Annie

His fellow performer at Radford’s, John Jones, was also a fine and talented horseman, feted in the Colony as Matthew St Leon (forebear of circus historian, Dr Mark Valentine St Leon). These two pioneering circus men became cornerstones in the continuing story of Australian Classic Circus.

Ashton and St Leon created two circus dynasties; working sometimes with and sometimes against each other they left an indelible mark on Australia’s cultural life. Marriage and other in/formal liaisons between the two families also occurred as Ashtons and St Leons marched side by side with Australia into history; gold rushes, bushrangers, Federation, World War I, the Spanish Flu, the Depression, World War II, television, new technologies; these major events impacted on the circus even as they shaped the wider society.

Ashton’s Circus had a motorised fleet as early at 1911

Eventually, in the 1960s, St Leon’s Circus fell by the wayside, but the Ashton Dynasty prospered and grew, continually adapting and re-creating their life-style on the wing, as it were; there is no textbook that tells how to “do” circus, but the accumulated Ashton experience of 170 odd years has created a blue print for longevity. It is possible that they may well be “the world’s longest-running circus family still in the business”. ⁸

Even in the strange days of lockdown and stasis created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ashton name is creating news in tandem with current societal adaptation as Australia, and indeed the rest of the world, moves into an uncertain future. Joseph “Pepe” Ashton, 6^th generation in the direct male line of James Henry Ashton, and owner/operator of two shows, Circus Joseph Ashton and Infamous, the cabaret-in-a-tent sensation, maintains the stoic attitude displayed by his forebears when he says that they (the family and performers) will “self-isolate and train at the same time” in their tent, in lockdown, on a farm in Queensland.⁹

Elsewhere other branches of the family hunkered down to weather the storm; some, like Jan Ashton-Rodriguez (5^th generation) and her daughter Chantel, spend countless hours sorting and scanning thousands of photographs, newspaper clippings and other documents, while in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, two 8^th generation Ashton poppets, Solomon Ashton Falagan and his little sister Penelope, diligently and joyfully fill their lock-down days with “lots and lots of practise” at their parents’ circus school.  

And so the dynasty continues.   

For the Ashton family, and for other circus proprietors and performers, the recent pandemic is in many ways just another bump in the road, another storm to be weathered. As the times change, so too does the nature of the circus life.

The Twenty First Century has already seen a plethora of change for circus folk, both nationally and internationally, and this is reflected in the changing nature of the style of performance offered by the Ashton family. Fortuitously, circus as a way of life and as an art form has survived because of a paradox: it is infinitely flexible and continually recreates itself in order to comply with current legislation and social mores, but at the same time, and against all odds, it retains an essential, visceral, selfness, a continuing sameness. Regardless of advances in technology and presentation styles, there is a fundamental, unchanged and unchanging element of “circus” which reaches out and touches the hearts of its audience in an inexplicable and profound way. Deep and nourishing connections are forged between the audience and the performers, the performers and their animals, between family members in the circus ring and between families in the audience. These are all intangible, fundamentally imperative and irreplaceable elements in a world where much of modern life is increasingly conducted in front of a lifeless screen.

By drawing on the vast archives retained by the Ashton family through good times and bad—flood, fire, theft and misadventure have wasted many a precious photo or document—I am enabled to shape this salute to a unique family plying its trade over eight generations; for over 50 years I am a fortunate witness to part of that journey.

Travels with Alfie

As I travel around New South Wales from one club gig to another with Alfie and Paul or Bobby or John, the other members of The Flying Warrens, I come to realise that a whole world of exotica lies just beyond my every-day sight. Once these “ordinary blokes” don their costumes they become dynamic performers, thrilling audiences who often prefer to play the poker machines that keep the sporting and social clubs afloat. Grabbing the attention of these jaded audience members is a skill in its own right, and these circus men own this skill in spades.

It brings to mind the instruction given to Lorraine Ashton Grant when she debuted her world-famous whip-cracking act at the tender age of 14. Her mother, Phyllis Ashton, reminds her that ‘Everyone in the audience should think you’re smiling just at them’.

Many years later, working as Personal Assistant to Joseph “Pepe” Ashton, owner of the eponymous Circus Joseph Ashton and the cabaret show, Infamous, I am intrigued to watch his 8-year-old nephew, Rikki Ashton Harrison (7^th generation), as he interacts with an audience comprised of primary school children, a notoriously tough crowd. With an uncanny assurance Rikki has these students eating out of his hand as he demonstrates skills and explains various pieces of circus equipment and animal training methods; another master showman at work.

To me, these instances clearly demonstrate that nature andnurture make the performer.

The more time I spend with Alfie Warren, the more it seems that he is related to everybody in the circus, not just in Australia but in many parts of the world. And as many Aussies do, I too head to England on another leg of my accidental journey.

In London I meet one of Alfie’s cousins, but I am no longer surprised by this serendipity. Neville Ashton Hay, his wife Shirley and their five children are appearing at the Victoria Palace Theatre with the Black and White Minstrel Show; in 1971 it is still okay to employ such suspect language. I spend several happy Sunday afternoons with the family, sharing stories about Alfie and the extended Ashton family and enjoying Shirley’s scrumptious roast dinners.

There is a large, informal family of expat-Aussie performers in London, and when I return to Australia I find another one of them, Edward “Mickey” Ashton Hay, Neville’s big bruvver, returned once more to his family’s circus.

It is now 1975 and Ashton’s Circus is touring a famous Spanish boys’ circus, the eponymous Los Muchachos, to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra. I am employed as assistant to the company secretary but quickly learn to drive a truck and tow a caravan.

Who needs mobile phones? The author, with temporary telephone.

When the Muchachostour winds up, business as usual resumes for Ashton’s Circus and I find myself as cape carrier to the fabulous Flying Ashtons; a bit of a come-down from being one of the Flying Diamonds in Germany (to being a supernumerary, I hasten to add, not to being at Ashton’s), but that’s the way it goes in la vie en cirque. I remember of one of Mickey Ashton Hay’s typically self-effacing bon mots: ‘I’ve lived at the Waldorf Astoria and slept under a circus truck … I’ve seen it all’.

In 1980 I was in a position to entice Mickey away from Ashton’s Circus to the soon-to-be famous Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury-Wodonga to teach tumbling and comedy to a bunch of astounding local school children. Uncle Mickey, as the kids came to call him, was a much-loved, inspirational teacher with impeccable comedy timing and a wicked glint of humour in his bright blue eyes.

“Uncle Mickey” larrikin acrobat

Some years earlier, and not long after meeting the Seven Ashtons in London, I land a job as a trainee flying trapeze artist on Zirkus Busch-Roland, a huge and famous German outfit in the still-divided country. Community circus and all that has flowed from it is still in the near future, but at that time, the early 1970s, there is no real pathway to becoming a circus performer for an outsider such as myself.

In earlier times it was not uncommon for children from impoverished families, or those embarrassingly born out of wedlock, to be informally adopted by circus families and trained as performers. Some of these children thrived. May Wirth, born May Emmeline Zinga in 1894, was “given away” to Wirth’s Circus as a seven-year-old and became the most famous female circus performer in the Western world, fêted for her astounding feats on horseback at Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey in the United States.¹⁰

The road to a circus life is often obscure and if it were not for rare, random instances such as an ad I spy in the English theatrical newspaper, The Stage, seeking a female acrobat, training provided, to join Der Fliegenden Diamonds (The Flying Diamonds), I may well have landed elsewhere. By now I can spot an opportunity when it’s handed to me and once more it’s “deja vu again” as I follow the footsteps of an Australian circus star into the unknown.

First there was Kay Richards, of the blue and green eyes, and now here is Nikki Zelie Ashton, wife of Mervyn Ashton, and mother of future circus entrepreneur, Joseph “Pepe” Ashton. The alluring Nikki is a stunning, l-o-n-g legged blonde flying bombshell. She is taking a sabbatical from the family show in Australia to gain experience in a European circus and she has the looks, the personality, the temperament, and most of all, the skills and dedication of a great flyer.

Mervyn Ashton began flying in 1952 with his father Doug as catcher. As is the way of the circus, Merv taught Nikki to fly, then later taught their son Pepe who achieved, but never performed in public, the legendary triple somersault in 1988. In 1994 Merv and Nikki’s daughter, Bekki, made circus history when she became the first Australian-born woman to perfect and regularly perform this great feat. Pepe and Michelle’s son Jordan also became a member of the elite triple somersault club in 2010, and in 2021 Bekki’s son Rikki, at 15 years of age, has become the latest member of the Flying Ashton’s to regularly perform the mighty triple somersault. In late news, I’m pleased to learn that at seventeen-years-of-age Rikki is now, as of 2023, a member of the triple somersault club, flying to catcher Casius West Sooby, also 17.

The Flying Ashtons: Australian circus royalty: Arthur Heal, Mervyn & Nikki Ashton, Howard Knight

The Flying Ashtons: (front) Michelle Jarman, Bekki Mitzi Ashton, Pepe Ashton, (rear) David Wayne, Nikki Zelie Ashton

Meanwhile, back in 1972 in Germany, who do the Flying Diamonds get as a replacement for the tall, gorgeous and talented Nikki after her return home to Australia? Me. Lucky me. Unlucky them. Short, and like so many dancers in those days, weak in the arms, I have one saving grace. Cecchetti ballet training has given me a formidably strong diaphragm (core strength) and this enables me to do a lot of things other beginner aerialists battle with, but it still takes me an awfully long time to learn to chin the bar correctly. Nikki was well-loved and respected on Zirkus Busch-Roland and added a glamorous lustre to the many tales told (still being told) of the Ashton family in Europe and America.

As a child and a young man Alfie performed in Australia, South Africa and England with his father, four siblings and Harold Simons in the family Risley act, then known in their international incarnation, as the Martinettis.

Practising at Fred & Nellie’s home in Sydney: Alfie Warren Jnr. balances young brother Eddie

The Martinettis: Circus Boswell-Wilkie, South Africa

Alfie’s mother, Maude Ashton Warren, was one of 11 children and her father, Flash Fred, was from a family of 13 children. A large number of these off-spring also had large families, and many members of James Henry Ashton’s ever-spreading family tree remain in show business in one form or another in various parts of the globe.

The Warrens return to Australia just prior to the Second World War, interrupting a stellar career in England that includes several Royal Command Performances. Post WWII The Seven Ashtons Risley act follows the success of their Warren cousins, firstly in South Africa, and then with several Royal Command Performances in Europe. They are soon off to the United States where most of this branch of the family remains, going on to enjoy big success as stars of circus, night-clubs, film and television. Global citizens, excelling at whatever they do: acrobats, dancers, singers, musicians, song-writers, horse-trainers, greyhound breeders, boxers, film industry workers, the talents proliferate, and the Ashton tradition rolls on.

Up to their usual tricks: The Seven Ashtons

Up to their usual tricks: The Seven Ashtons

In time I meet many of Alfie’s cousins, not just the Ashton mob, but relatives from prominent circus families around the world. A genealogist recently engaged by 6^th generation Chantel Ashton-Rodriguez to research the family tree rapidly withdraws his services on realising what a mammoth task is in store; he really doesn’t need that kind of headache, he says. Indeed, the family grows even as I write; today a message on social media from a woman whose great-grandmother was one of Flash Fred and Nellie’s children. As far as I know, this woman had not previously been in touch with her circus family and is excited to make contact, a positive win for social networking.

Legacy

Although young James (Jemmy) and his brother Flash Fred, inherited the circus and all it entailed, old James Henry Ashton continued to travel with the show until his death in 1889. His legacy was assured by the astute, but volatile, guidance of Flash Fred. Described as a fire-cracker of a man, he was a dapper dresser, both in the ring and out of it, and a brilliant all-round performer. Brother Jemmy, a quiet and calm counterpoint to Fred’s pyrotechnics, gravitated with his family towards music hall and variety, leaving the sawdust ring and its heartaches and triumphs to his younger brother.

Ashton brothers: Genial Jem & Firecracker Fred

Ivy Fulford in her hand-stitched costume

It is Flash Fred’s family-line that runs true today and keeps their famous name in lights and in the mind of the Australian public. Flash Fred and Nellie’s son Joseph (Gentleman Joe), was another larrikin who loved a good yarn and a game of cards. He married a woman from “outside” showbiz, but could not have found a better match.

Ivy Fulford, a champion swimmer who never backed away from a challenge, soon became a fully-fledged performer and eventually donned the mantle of circus matriarch. In a break from tradition, Ivy and Joe had only two children, Cecil and Douglas. Cecil, known to the family as Sonny, died tragically from leukaemia at the age of 16; Doug, known affectionately as Bubba, married his childhood sweetheart, 17-year-old Phyllis Kelroy when he was only 16.

The rest, as they say, is history …

Adagio on Horseback: Doug & Phyllis Ashton

Post-World War II, a revitalised Ashton’s Circus under the stewardship of Doug and Phyllis, goes from triumph to triumph, becoming, reputedly, the largest travelling road show in the world. The next generation, Lorraine, Mervyn and Jan, bred-in-the-bone performers all, are nurtured in the traditions. They, in turn, pass on the skills and knowledge and lore accumulated over 170 years to their children and grandchildren, and now, great-grandchildren.

Passing on the Knowledge: Phyllis Ashton, Jan Ashton, Tanya & Tammy Ashton Grant

Jan Ashton & Lorraine Ashton Grant

The show continues to grow and prosper until, ultimately, it becomes a victim of its own success and implodes in 2002. The family, divided but unconquered, picks up the pieces and heads down the road to more success.

Doug and Phyllis’ three children, each with strong and individual personalities, create three remarkable shows, each with its own style, but all grounded in family tradition.

Lorraine and her husband, Gary Grant (himself from an outstanding family of performers, musicians, and rodeo-riders), along with their four children, Tanya, Tamalyn, Marshal and Tara, and their spouses and children, harken back to their traditional roots. Lorraine Ashton’s Classic Circus springs into being and Tanya establishes a successful circus school. 

Lorraine Ashton’s Classic Circus

Jan Ashton-Rodriguez and her husband, Brazil Rodriguez (from the famous boys’ circus, Los Muchachos), together with their daughters, Tamara and Chantel, create a beautiful classic show named Circus Xsavier to honour Brazil’s Spanish heritage. The show enjoys mixed fortunes but flourishes with a name change to Ashton Entertainment. This new entity creates and produces a variety of circus and corporate shows under canvas and for site-specific locations in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Jan and daughter Chantel are currently establishing a circus school and a permanent Ashton archive and museum. The latest Ashton-Rodriguez outfit is the spectacular, Ashton Entertainment Presents the Great Australian Circus.

Jan Ashton-Rodriguez & Brazil Rodriguez (Ashton’s Circus)

Chantel Ashton-Rodriguez (Ashton Entertainment)

Jefferson Amaril: Amaril Riders (Ashton Entertainment)

Mervyn and Nikki’s eldest child, Pepe, takes his new show, Circus Joseph Ashton, on the road with his partner, Michelle and their two children, Jordan and Merrik, along with his sisters Bekki and Golda and their partners, and his indefatigable parents; the show finds its own style and its own way. Firmly grounded in the traditions and skills of the past, Circus Joseph Ashton nevertheless has a contemporary feel, and audiences love it.

In the intrepid footsteps of his adventurous grandfather Doug, Pepe leads Circus Joseph Ashton across the vast emptiness of the Nullarbor Plain to Perth and steadily builds a loyal local following. Despite growing opposition from animal activists and short-sighted and rapacious local councils, Circus Joseph Ashton successfully establishes a routine of longer seasons on city and suburban locations with only occasional forays into country areas.

Joseph “Pepe” Ashton with Liberty Horses (Circus Joseph Ashton)

Joseph “Pepe” Ashton Juggling on horse-back (Ashton’s Circus)

Pepe not only inherits his forebears’ commitment to the equestrian arts, but also his grandfather’s entrepreneurial instincts. Successfully dipping his toes into presenting one-off hybrid adult cabaret shows in the Circus Joseph Ashton big top leads to the creation of the cabaret-in-a-tent sensation, Infamous. Complete with bar, cabaret-style tables and chairs, and spiced with adult humour inspired by the comedy genius of Lorraine Ashton Grant’s grandson, Jesse, Infamous presents top-line traditional circus acts in a celebratory, party atmosphere. Infamous is back on the road again after Covid-19 lock-downs; things have changed, but, in one form or another, the Ashton show rolls on.

Yin and Yang Duo (Circus Joseph Ashton)

Joseph “Pepe” Ashton—1st to complete a forward somersault on the outside of the Wheel of Death

Baby Bindi Ashton Harrison Wishart (8th generation) with mum Dante Phillis Ashton Harrison & dad Kyle Whishart

Kyle Whishart & Baby Bindi

At a loose end in 2011, and exhausted after two years teaching school and running a coffee cart at Stardust Circus, I find myself on the lot of Circus Joseph Ashton in Perth. Somehow or other I talk my way into a job. I am now Personal Assistant to Pepe, my third iteration of working for the Ashton family. I am now back in my hometown, Perth. A circle has been inscribed; I have arrived back at the place I started from, and know it for the first time¹¹. Possibly.

In the “old days”, not so long ago, Australian circuses played one-night stands, “one-nighters”, for weeks and months on end. A circus was here one day, gone the next. In the morning, after the show had left town, what was left behind? Not much. A bit of sawdust, a few sequins and …

… a series of concentric circles …

… an outer circle of holes and divots where the tent-pegs had been driven into the dirt … a circle where the side-walls of the big top brushed the ground, and around the perimeter a hastily dug trench if, as so frequently happens, there is rain … a circle at the foot of the seating where the audience has trampled the dirt … a circle marking the ring-side chairs, then the ring-fence, the ring-box, all marked in the dust. Lastly, most magic of all, the ring itself, faintly outlined with random unraked sawdust where the ghost-prints of horses’ hooves are embossed on the dry grass, and a lost sequin or two sparkles in the morning light.    

When the circus departs, this is all it leaves behind; circles. Magic circles. And memories ….

Alfie Warren is long gone. Many other dear circus friends have gone. But the stories are still here, circling round and round the sawdust ring, spinning into the spotlight, swirling into space.

Cosmos II

Endnotes

1. Grant, Lorraine Ashton in Cornish, Patrick, Lord of the Circus Ring (p.64.) Sunday Times, 18 August 2020. Western Australia.

2. Ashton, Joseph. Opening announcement, Circus Joseph Ashton.

3. https://twitter.com/Glennademeter/status/1397237212069105666

4. Lennon, Dolly. (2004). Sawdust in my shoes. Private printing. Sydney, NSW, Australia.

5. West, Philip (2009). The Last Horse and Wagon Circus Family. Bookbound Publishing, Australia.

6. Ratcliffe, Tony (2010). The Elephant Man. A Pictorial History of the Whirling Bros. Circus. Op. cit. Limited, Auckland, New Zealand.

7. St Leon, Mark. (2011). Circus. The Australian Story. Melbourne Books, Melbourne, Vic, Australia.

8. O’Brien, Geraldine (2008). The Ashton Family. Dynasties 2. ABC Books, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

9. Oxley, Luella. https://www.facebook.com/luella.steptooxley/videos/pcb.850721828730892

10. St Leon, Mark (2011) Circus. The Australian Story. Melbourne Books, Melbourne, Vic, Australia.

11. Eliot, T S (1942). Little Gidding. Four Quartets. Faber & Faber, London, UK.

12. Robertson, P (1999). Cosmos II. Etching. Unique state.

Photographs courtesy of

Ashton Circus Archive

Ashton family

Ashton-Rodriguez family

Kelroy-Yeomans family

Ashton-Hay family

Zacchini family

Dr Mark St Leon

Border Morning Mail, Albury

Downey family

State Library of New South Wales