Over the rooftops comes the distant thump of disco music. Closer up the scent of candyfloss wafts over temporary bus stops.

It’s time to wipe the hot dog mustard off my brogues, and step back in time at the St Giles Fair.

Today I’m going to meet George Sanger, “the Monarch of all Showmen’”. His waxwork exhibitions were such a hit in 1860s Oxford that they remained propped up in Gloucester Green long after everyone else had moved on.

But waxworks of exotic animals and famous royals were small change to this Newbury-born showman. He owned a circus and a travelling show that he opened aged 24 and expanded to an unprecedented scale.

Throughout the latter half of the century, Sanger’s English and Continental Circus pitched up at “Circus Field” along Botley Road. Attractions included bare-back female horse riders as well as “lions, kangaroos, pelicans, emus, ostriches, monkeys”. And my personal favourite, a lady Gorilla named Jane.

But by far the grandest display Sanger brought to our doorsteps was “With Kitchener at Khartoum”.

The spectacular crashed into Botley Road for two performances, at 2.30pm and 7pm, on March 18, 1899. Advertised as “The Greatest Exhibition to Ever Travel Her Majesty’s Dominions”, the spectacle aimed to give punters a bird’s eye view of Britain’s Imperial victories along the Nile.

Sanger had 11 boats specially built, measuring up to 60 feet in length. He had a cast of 500 actors, 460 horses and donkeys, a herd of camels and “twelve monster elephants” including one called H.R.H., who had carried the future Edward VII around India. Less than a year after the Oxford spectacular, H.R.H. was in Kent with his fellow elephants, being washed down by their keeper.

“Ain’t they docile?” he’d bragged to his colleagues, sitting down at the Kent stable-yard for a smoke.

To prove his point, the keeper picked up a stick and jabbed an elephant named Charlie hard in the ribs. Charlie had been with Sanger since the 1860s and had featured in 25 pantomimes. He wasn’t docile at all. Breaking through his iron chains, he gouged the keeper to death!

On his way out, Charlie squashed a second attendant, smashed through a 15ft wall, caused mayhem in the roller skating rink and then made his way into the garden. It took four ounces of cyanide and five guns to stop him.

H.R.H. was the next elephant to break loose. He demolished Lyon’s Tea Rooms, and crossed several railway lines before he was captured.

On retirement, Sanger had his effects sold off before meeting his own grisly end at home in 1911, struck over the head with an axe by his disgruntled valet.