Emmie Yelding lived through a golden age of the circus and was a gifted circus performer and owner of a small zoo.

Circus heritage connects Yelding to three of England’s most celebrated families of the sawdust ring, the Fossetts, Cooks and Yeldings. Her father, Ellis Cook, was one of those young men who, romantically, "Ran away to join the circus" as a youngster. He joined up with the famous Bostock and Wombwell’s travelling menagerie, toured with it throughout Europe and England, and played in the band on the cornet.

As a young man he later took up with "Sir" Robert Fossett’s Circus which was to become the longest-running show in British history. He also married the proprietor’s daughter, Emmiline Fossett. Like most members of the Fossett family, Emmiline was a talented rider, typical of the age in which she was born, the modern circus having evolved from the riding displays of Philip Astley in London in 1768. With Fossett’s show, Ellis became a talented animal trainer, with horses, ponies and dogs. Their daughter Emmie was born in Wandsworth, London, in August, 1919.

Emmiline died when her daughter was only four years old. Subsequently Ellis Cook married her sister, Sarah Fossett. Sarah bore him four sons; Alec, Robert, Gordon and Tommy. Gordon and Tommy were destined to become circus performers and clowns, but little is known of what became of Alec and Robert. They went to school in Bradford and Manchester but Emmie and her family lost all touch with them.

Like her mother and step-mother, Emmie became a talented bareback rider in the circus ring. She reminisced years later in a book, Tales of the Old Horsemen by Jennifer Davies (published by David and Charles, 1997) that "My Mamma was very clever and lovely - they all were, the Fossetts, a very clever family, and they were noted for riding".

Unlike her stepbrothers, Emmie was with the circus from childhood, growing up to perform with the horses, ponies and dogs, and knowing no other life. To the end she retained her love for and enthusiasm of the entertainment field into which she was born. She was also a stalwart defender of circus folk and their treatment of animals, having kept many herself, always to the highest standards.

"Circus people genuinely love their animals," she maintained, and this was evident in the way she devotedly cared for her own pet animals in the circuses at which she worked and in the miniature zoos she promoted in some of the country's top department stores.

Growing up in the travelling life of a circus performer, Emmie became adept as a circus bareback rider, tightwire walker and trapeze artiste. She and her family are highlighted in Lady Eleanor Smith’s illuminating circus book "British Circus Life" (1948, published by Harrap) and she was featured in the film "Red Wagon", the 1934 adaptation by British International Pictures of Eleanor Smith’s novel, which starred Charles Bickford, Greta Nissan and Raquel Torres. This was made at Chapman’s Circus, one of the shows that she featured in during her younger years, like Astley’s Circus and Reco Brothers’ Circus, and while in film "Old Mother Riley at the Circus", made with the big stars Arthur Lucan and Kitty MacShane, in 1941, she worked at Boreham Wood studios for eight weeks along with her husband-to-be, Johnnie Yelding, who came from another of Britain’s oldest circus dynasties. She also made an appearance in a circus film with the comedian George Formby.

George Bruce Chapman’s Circus was her earliest performing scene, at the age of 11 making her debut in the sawdust ring to replace an injured bareback rider at the Grand Theatre, Birmingham. She was working at Harry Benet’s Circus at the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth when the war broke out and she eventually got her "call up papers" to become a Land Girl. But her agent managed to work the system so that she was allowed to continue working as a circus artiste, joining Ray Stott’s presentation of Carmo’s Circus. She continued to work with the Seymour agency for about 15 years, in an act called the Rothwells, wire walking, and riding, with Johnnie Yelding, known as "Speedy" as the comic clown of the acts.

When Leslie Sanger resurrected Lord John Sanger’s Circus, they went with it as part of a circus and variety bill which was headlined by an unknown but up-and-coming young comic duo, Morecambe and Wise. Emmie always recalled wistfully that Ernie Wise took a "real shine" to her. On the music hall stage she also worked with some celebrated performers of the time, including "Hutch" (the coloured singer-pianist Leslie A Hutchinson) and the harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler.

Emmie Cook and her family, Ellis and Sarah and young Gordon, were featured in Reco’s Circus in the late 1940s, when Eleanor Smith wrote glowingly of the attractive girl who had figured in the film adaptation of her novel "Red Wagon".

Having married her long-time sweetheart Johnnie Yelding, they operated their own small but immaculate circus at Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire in the summers of 1951 and 1952, adding a small zoo and pets’ corner attraction. The miniature zoo returned in 1953 and thereafter Emmie and Johnnie left the circus world to run miniature zoos both in summer and winter. Yelding’s Empire zoo, as it was named, ran a remarkable 25 years on the seafront at Southend on Sea at what was then called Peter Pan’s Playground. In the winter periods, they were always in demand to present their zoo at stores around the country, in a time when such attractions were a regular part of the Christmas scene. Some readers may recall seeing their immaculate little displays in old time stores like Killroy’s of Swindon, Bon Marche in Gloucester, Bodger’s of Ilford, or the London venues, Arding and Hobbs in Clapham, and Jones and Higgins in Peckham.

Their small collection of beautifully-presented animals emanated from the acquisition of a ring-tailed lemur as a pet which they had acquired from a singer appearing with them at Sanger’s Circus at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Subsequently they were to acquire diverse creatures like penguins, monkeys, fox, badger, lions, bears, squirrels, dogs and dingoes.

Each afternoon, at feeding time, Emmie could be seen donning a fresh, clean "pinny" and laying portable tray station with the various foods her pets ate, wheeling it round the menagerie and dispensing goodies to her devoted "children". She and Johnnie never had children of their own and undoubtedly the animals were a surrogate substitute.

They sold up the remarkable little zoo after 25 years in Southend as her husband’s health grew worse, first retiring to a mobile home in Boston, and later after John’s death in 1980, Emmie took a bungalow in Skegness, close to a number of circus folk and relatives who made an enclave there.

Her step brother Tommy Cook survives.

Emmie Yelding, circus artiste and zoo owner, was born on August 14, 1919. She died on November 26, 2008, aged 89