How Nell's circus dream came true

The glitter, the glamour, the sense of wonder... it’s many a young girl’s dream to be in a circus.

Most of us grow up to realise that behind the sparkly costumes and seeming effortless grace of the performers lies a whole lot of blood, sweat and plain hard graft.

But one woman who never lost sight of the magic is Nell Gifford, so much so that she started her own circus.

Having already had a taste of life in the big top, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

“A good circus, a circus that is doing its job, should somehow feel like a moment of crisis, like it is on the very brink of extinction, as if a moment of excess and brilliance has been reached and over reached,” says Oxford University graduate Nell, whose much-acclaimed circus is currently performing at Blenheim Palace.

“ A good circus is a sublimely existential thing, living acutely and only for the golden present moment. This is what I have discovered.”

Her story began in Oxford and then Wiltshire where her family lived in “big houses, not much money... a threadbare, beautiful bohemian life”.

That changed when Nell – who has four siblings, including pottery designer Emma Bridgewater – was 18 and due to go to Oxford to read English. In November 1991, her much-loved mother fell from her horse and when she finally emerged from a coma two months later, it was clear she was severely and permanently brain-damaged.

“She was effectively lost to us – and when you lose your mother, you lose yourself,” says Nell.

“The distinct person that you are to her, you are to no one else, and I struggled to cope with what had happened. Ironically enough, it was that dreadful setback that set me on the road to the circus.”

She took a gap year and travelled to America, where her brother knew the owners of the touring show Circus Flora, spending time painting lorries and riding a horse parades.

Returning to England she read English at New College but the seeds of what she wanted to do with her future had already been sown. “I had by this point decided that I wanted to run my own circus,” she says.

After finishing her final exams, while her fellow graduates were heading for more conventional careers, she bought an old van and “joined the first circus that came to town”.

“It was, if nothing else, a job and a shaky step towards what felt like an insurmountable dream,” she says.

Giffords Circus line-up in 2006 (Nell is holding the horse and standing next to husband Toti)

The going wasn’t easy as, for the next few years, she worked on many different circus shows.

“I can’t say that crawling through the mud in the middle of the night rolling up rubber stable mats, my throat burning with the fumes of elephant pee, was exactly what I had in mind, but it gave me something to do – a track, a path – and that path nonetheless made sense to me.” She says England in the 90s was a bad time for circuses; shows were in decline and morale amongst circus people was low.

Life was tough but Nell learned a lot about the trade.

She sold tickets, ice cream and hotdogs; drove vans and trailers; swung sledgehammers; raked sawdust; rode Arab horses and an elephant; wore a top hat and introduced acts and scoured car boot sales for trinkets and old swimwear to make in to showgirl costumes.

“While working for a French family circus touring the South Coast, I started to help with administration. I booked grounds, negotiated with farmers and lobbied the councils to try and get fairer treatment for the circus,” says Nell.

More skills and knowledge towards creating her dream of a 1930s-style vintage circus were being gained, and then two more pivotal events took place.

First Nell (whose surname was then Stroud) met Toti Gifford: “When a tall, curly-haired boy with a smudgy oily face smiles at you and drives you to see your sister in Yorkshire in a tractor, what do you do? she asks. “You fall in love, of course.”

But, much as she didn’t want to leave her new-found love she was heading for Germany to work with world-famous circus equestrienne Yasmine Smart – the granddaughter of Billy Smart. At Circus Roncalli the last pieces of Nell’s vision were falling in to place as she was inspired by “a circus culture as celebrated as a gorgeous Faberge egg” and became ever more determined to breathe new life back in to the art in the UK.

“I was overwhelmed by its immaculate veneer, its velvet halls, its embossed and engraved wagons, its miles of festoon lights, its shimmering art deco design,” she recalls.

Back in England, in 1999, Nell and Toti – a landscape gardener – decided to start their circus... with no money, equipment or backing.

“It was, I can say now, and utterly exhausting process,” says Nell, who gave birth to twins Cecil and Red in 2010, recalling the struggles along the way. Moving in to Toti’s rented cottage and working from a garden shed made into an office, planning began and a circus which has entertained hundreds of thousands of people in a decade of touring shows in the West Country was born.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing and there have been lots of adventures, ups and downs.

Now Nell has written a book – Giffords Circus: The First Ten Years – which charts the journey and tells the stories of the shows and performers.

“Over this time we have entertained over 200,000 people. We have travelled the world in search of artistes, musicians and directors – Budapest, Bucharest, Moscow, Paris – we have watched thousands of hours of circus, rehearsals and training. We have lived and worked with Parisian musicians, Ossetian horsemen, Hungarian farmers, Romanian artisans, Ethiopian brothers, runaways and rebels,” says Nell, in the book. “This is their story, and ours.”

Giffords Circus is performing new show – The Thunders – at Blenheim Palace until Monday; at Waterperry Gardens from Thursday June 19 to Saturday 23 and Oxford University Parks from Thursday July 3 to Saturday 12. Adults £22; children £14; under threes sitting on lap free

For details go to giffordscircus.com or call 0845 459 7469.