Spectrum was a long-running weekly radio documentary series which captured the essence of New Zealand from 1972 to 2016. Alwyn Owen and Jack Perkins produced the series for many years, creating a valuable library of New Zealand oral history.
[Circus music playing]
The NZBC presents ‘You Must Know How To Save Yourself’. Reg Williams of Napier talks with Laurie Swindell about his life in the circus.
Reg used to travel the country in a horse caravan that had 80 to 90 horses pulling all the wagons and reckons he has seen most of New Zealand from the driver’s seat of a wagon.
Laurie explains that among other things, Reg has been a wildlife officer, a naturalist, a broadcaster, a writer and a trapeze artist.
Reg explains that circuses have been around for over 4000 years and that they will always be popular. They are family concerns. He got into the circus by accident, being a gymnast; he developed an act called ‘The Slide of Death’, which he took to a local circus. In the 1920s a knife thrower named Tex McLaren used Reg as his target, the only time he felt scared in the circus.
In Wellington, Reg organised a variety show as part of a carnival, at the St James Theatre, formerly His Majesty’s Theatre, and had an act who played tin whistles. One night, 400 French sailors attended and sang to La Marseillaise played on the tin whistle.
Laurie asked about living and travel conditions. Reg said he drove the lion wagon and lived in a tent. It was a hard life, in a small circus everyone has to work. Animals rarely escape, but a bear did get out once.
When asked about using wild or tame animals, Reg said it was up to the trainer, but most were born in captivity.
Why would he join a circus if it was a hard and dangerous life? Reg says a circus is a family, comradeship and all part of the act. Oleg Popov, the world famous clown came to New Zealand, got in the ring and was part of the audience.