Chipperfields, Kingston, 1972.
Sir Cedric Hardwicke in Let's Pretend tells of his childhood memories of the circus: "One of my earliest recollections is of Barnum and Bailey's Circus at Olympia, to which I was taken at the age of four. I was much impressed with the 'freaks' and thought that I had been badly treated in not resembling them in some way! But it was the sword-swallower who fired my boyish imagination. As soon as I reached home I endeavoured to emulate his feats by trying to thrust a carving-knife down my throat. My mother's alarm when she found me so engaged quite startled me."
back