WHEN WERE you so close to an elephant that you could touch its trunk? Where did you see a horse racing around just inches away, mane and tail flying? Where have you patted the tufty hair of a camel? The only place you could have done all these things is at a circus.

I’ve worked in a circus. I’ve pulled on my fishnet tights, tied up my tassles, adjusted my white feather headdress and ridden into the ring on the back of Julia, my elephant. I’ve heard the crowd gasp, then roar, responding to the spectacle of woman and large beast working so closely together, as if dancing. Then, when the big top empties, I’ve watched the trainers tend to the animals, making sure they are watered, fed and bedded first.

This simple, sensual human-animal contact may soon be banned. The Animal Welfare Bill that is progressing through Parliament has the admirable intention of improving animals’ lot. But, if passed, it would also be a powerful weapon in the hands of the anti-circus lobby that wants to ban all animal acts, whether dogs, donkeys or big cats. It portrays cruel animal trainers ambushing lions in the African bush and carrying them back in a cage. In fact, all circus animals are born in captivity. Also, many animals we think of as wild are seen as domestic in the rest of the world. In India, for example, elephants are regarded in the same way as horses here. Camels, too, are almost always working animals.

There is nothing wrong with training animals to perform — whether it’s a racehorse or the family dog learning how to stop at the kerbside. According to the animal behaviourist Marthe Kiley-Worthington, who was commissioned by the RSPCA to report on animals in circuses, animals enjoy being taught new tricks. She concluded that it was wrong to presume animals should always be kept in a primitive, so-called natural state. Just as some human beings enjoy stretching their physical capabilities, like athletes and circus artistes, so do some animals.

Of course, cruelty to animals should be punished, wherever it occurs. But circus people aren’t by definition cruel, any more than are pet owners. Accusations that they wantonly use whips are unfounded. Most whips I’ve seen have been used at gymkhanas and dressage events, including the Olympics, where horses are lashed far more than in any circus ring. If we want to stop displaying animals for our own entertainment, then let’s start with banning the local horse show on the village green.

The wonder of the circus is how human and animal lives are entwined. When my circus arrived at each new pitch, the first thing we did was erect a wire around a vast paddock, so the elephants could roam freely. During the night, they would nudge up against the side of my trailer, their trunks tickling the outside walls. In the next trailer, the couple with the dog act would be sleeping among their animals, breathing each others’ air. On the other side, the horses were stabled, near enough to their trainer so he could hear their snorts. No other people live so closely with the animals that they care for. It reminds us that we are not that distant from them. To ban circuses is to believe that we are so very different from all other animals that there can never be a meeting point. Dr Kiley-Worthington called this “animal apartheid”.

After 20 years of assault from animal-rights activists, Britain’s circus community is under threat. The might of organisations such as the Born Free Foundation, funded by celebrities, together with the the RSPCA, is wielded against this tiny minority. Last week Born Free farcically called for an end to “elephants eating ice-cream” for our entertainment, as if this were happening on a daily basis in rings from Brighton to Birmingham. In fact, there’s only one circus elephant left in Britain, and she no longer performs.

Circus people are the endangered species, nomads with their own language — Parlari — a mix of English backslang, Italian, Yiddish and Romany, from which “flatties” (parlari for non-circus folk) get the words gaffer and josser. In any other country, such an indigenous tribe would be awarded huge grants to preserve its unique culture. But in Britain, they are persecuted and bullied by the more extreme activists. When these extremists can’t legitimately prevent a circus pitching, they resort to more terrifying tactics. I’ve been in trailers late at night, where children were asleep, listening to the sound of stones being thrown at the walls. A circus proprietor friend woke one morning to find an incendiary device underneath his car.

The Animal Welfare Bill gives great succour to those who want to destroy circus life. Born Free boasts that the Bill will “effectively end the use of wild animals in circuses”. Yet, despite all the protests, the propaganda and threats, people continue to flood into the big top. There is simply no entertainment like circus — the brilliant colours, the familiar drum roll, the pungent, intoxicating smell of the sawdust. The Greatest Show on Earth doesn’t have only a human cast. Horses and performers, camels and trainers, elephants and their riders can live, work and entertain others, happily together.

www.deabirkett.com

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