The Sequin Star (23 page)

Claire took Nanna's hand, which was trembling on top of the bedcover. ‘Like Elsie and Empress?' she asked.

Nanna frowned, giving Claire a quizzical look. ‘How do you know about them?'

‘You talked all about them,' explained Claire hurriedly. ‘And about the horses . . .'

‘Oh, my horses,' Nanna sighed. ‘I was worried that the other circuses might not love them and look after them the way we had. We knew that not all circuses treated their animals and people well. I kept my monkey, Lula, though. She was like my baby, and I could never have been parted from her.'

‘Were the elephants hurt during the fire, when they escaped?' Claire asked.

‘No. Luckily there were no injuries or deaths from the fire,' Nanna assured her. ‘There was just a friend – a dear friend – who disappeared. There was no body, so I think she found her way home. I've thought of her often over the years.'

Nanna took a hard look at Claire again. Claire smiled broadly.

‘Actually, when you were born, your mother named you for my sister who died, but also for my old friend,' Nanna confessed. ‘Claire has always been one of my favourite names.'

‘I didn't know until this week that you had a sister called Claire.'

‘Sometimes it is too painful to talk of the past, and sometimes no one now really wants to hear about it. We all struggled during the Depression, and most of us wanted to forget those tough times. It was such a long time ago.'

‘I'm glad I know about it,' said Claire. ‘I love learning about your circus past. You've had an amazing life.'

Nanna took Claire's hand and squeezed it in return. ‘As will you, my darling,' she assured her. ‘But enough talk of what happened so many years ago. How was your day today?'

‘It was good,' said Claire, settling back in her chair. ‘I had my audition for the ballet concert. I took your advice . . .'

Nanna looked puzzled.

‘You said to stand tall, shoulders back, dazzling smile and pretend I was someone else – like Giselle,' Claire reminded her. ‘I pretended I was a bareback circus dancer. I worked on my dance over the weekend and practised and practised. When I did it today, my teacher said it was the best performance I had ever done. In fact, she has asked me to perform a solo in the concert – my first one.'

Nanna smiled with delight. ‘So you aren't going to quit your dancing?'

Claire grinned. ‘No, it's fun. It makes me happy.'

‘Well done, darling. Congratulations.' Nanna lay back against the pillows. ‘All your hard work paid off.'

‘I think it was more than hard work,' said Claire. ‘I changed my whole point of view. I decided if I had to do it, it was worth doing well. It's easy to be ordinary. I decided I wanted to be
extraordinary
. I decided I wanted to be extraordinary like my grandmother – Princess Rosina of Romani.'

The Great Depression: Fast Facts

The Great Depression was an economic disaster that began with the stock market collapse on Wall Street, New York, on 29 October 1929. It lasted for several years and was a time of extreme hardship for many Australians as commodity prices fell, businesses closed, jobs were lost and people struggled to survive. Australia was one of the worst affected countries in the world with the second-highest level of debt and the second-highest level of unemployment after Germany, because of its mountain of debt and reliance on wool and wheat exports.

In Australia in the Depression:

•
Unemployment reached its peak in mid-1932 when nearly thirty per cent of people were unemployed. The effect was devastating. Without a steady income, many people lost their homes.

•
In Sydney during 1932, about 5000 families were evicted from their homes.

•
Hundreds of thousands of people were unemployed for an average of five years.

•
About 30,000 men went ‘on the wallaby track', as swagmen, walking hundreds of miles or ‘riding the rattler' (hitching rides on freight trains) in search of odd jobs. Many of these men left their families in the cities.

•
Approximately 40,000 people were homeless, living in shanty shelters or tents on public land, in caves or under bridges – without heating, electricity, running water or sanitation. Many others squatted in abandoned buildings or moved in to live with relatives.

•
About 60,000 people depended on the sustenance or ‘susso' payment, which was paid either as basic food rations or, later on, as vouchers that could be swapped for food. This payment did not cover rent, bills or clothing. It was only for people who were completely destitute, with no savings or assets, and was barely enough to keep families from starving.

•
Many people survived by queuing for food at soup kitchens or by living on bread and dripping. The inadequate nutrition led to widespread disease such as scurvy, dysentery, lice and scabies.

•
Working-class children generally left school at twelve or thirteen to find work.

•
Many children were abandoned in orphanages, sent to live with relatives who could afford to feed them or were given away. Some parents starved themselves to make sure their children had enough to eat.

•
Jobs were easier to find for younger people and women because they were paid a lower wage, but many youths lost their jobs as soon as they turned twenty-one, when their wages became higher.

•
In 1931 the basic wage was about four pounds per week, or 208 pounds per year, although a shop girl might only earn about twenty-three pounds per year.

•
People learned to do without and had to use their ingenuity and creativity to survive by making everyday items, repairing things instead of replacing them and looking after each other.

•
Life in the cities was tougher than in the country, where there was more food.

•
Australia was one of the last countries to recover from the Depression. By 1939 unemployment had dropped to about ten per cent.

•
In the 1930s there were about thirty circuses travelling and performing throughout Australia. These ranged from small, family, horse-and-wagon circuses to large circus trains. Some of the famous Australian circus families include Ashton, St Leon, Sole Bros, Perry Bros, Wirth Bros, Lennon and Holden. Modern circuses include many performers who trace their circus lineage back six or seven generations, or about 160 years.

•
For many years, circuses had exotic performing animals, such as lions, tigers, elephants and monkeys. Nowadays, most circuses no longer have wild animal acts. This is because public opinion has changed, as many people believe that keeping wild animals and training them to perform for entertainment is cruel and unnatural. While the members of the Sterling Brothers Circus loved their animals and tried to treat them well, not all circuses did, and there were many instances of animal cruelty.

•
Some of the characters and actions in this story are based on real people, such as Colonel Eric Campbell, the leader of the New Guard, and Sir Francis de Groot, who slashed the ribbon to prevent Premier Jack Lang from officially opening the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There really were plots to kidnap the Premier and overthrow the democratically elected Labor government. On 13 May 1932, several hundred members of the New Guard threatened to stage a coup d'état if Premier Lang did not resign. The threatened civil war did not eventuate, as Jack Lang was dismissed by the Governor Sir Philip Game, one hour before the deadline.

•
Another true story is that of Lennie Gwyther, the nine-year-old boy who rode by himself more than 1450 kilometres on his pony, Ginger Mick, to attend the opening of the Harbour Bridge. Lennie rode from Leongatha in Gippsland, Victoria, to Sydney and back – a journey of about three months – which made him famous.

•
Phar Lap the ‘Wonder Horse' was a champion racehorse who was the pride of the nation during the Great Depression. At the height of his career, he won thirty-two out of thirty-five races, including the Melbourne Cup. Gangsters tried to kill the chestnut thoroughbred before the Melbourne Cup in 1930. In 1932 Phar Lap won the Agua Caliente Handicap, the richest horserace in North America, in record time. A couple of weeks later on 5 April 1932, Phar Lap died in mysterious circumstances amid widespread speculation that the horse had been poisoned. Recent forensic analysis has shown that Phar Lap had ingested a massive dose of arsenic hours before his death. The autopsy revealed that Phar Lap's heart was nearly twice the size of a normal horse's heart.

Recipe for Depression cake

Ingredients

2 cups packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or bacon grease

2 cups raisins

2 cups hot water (or hot coffee)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Shredded apple or nuts can be added if desired.

Directions

Combine the brown sugar, vegetable oil, raisins and hot water in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil for five minutes, then set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 165 degrees C. Grease and flour a square cake tin. Stir together the flour, salt, baking soda and spices in a bowl. Mix in wet ingredients from the saucepan and pour into cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes in preheated oven. Cool in pan for ten minutes before serving.

Acknowledgements

I have always been fascinated by circuses. One of my earliest memories is visiting the Great Moscow Circus with my father and being entranced by the performing bears. (As a vet, Dad was called out to treat one of the Russian bears when the circus first came to Australia.) I remember as a teenager trying to teach myself bareback circus tricks on my pony – and getting thrown off multiple times. Over the years I managed to break several bones attempting fancy tricks on horseback.

This book was so much fun to research and write. I used multiple books, newspaper articles, memoirs, blogs, biographies and original film footage to research Australian circus life during the 1930s and the Great Depression. I would particularly like to acknowledge the work of Dr Mark St Leon, circus historian, including his biographies of famous Australian circus families such as the Wirths, St Leons, Ashtons and Bullens.

I was particularly inspired by the stories of several fascinating young women who grew up performing in Australian circuses, including bareback riders May Wirth and Peggy St Leon, elephant trainer Eileen Wirth, and artists Dollie Lennon, La Belle Marie, Dorothy Ashton and Lilian Bullen.

I am also very grateful to the cast and crew of Cavalia, who helped me with research for this book, particularly Eric Paquette and Mathieu Latourelle, and equestrian performers Katie Cox and Fairland Fergusson.

As always, enormous thanks go to my first readers and research assistants – Emily Murrell and Rob Murrell. We had great fun exploring circus lots and meeting performers.

One of the fascinating things we discovered during our circus research was that early last century, my husband's great-uncle Max Murrell ran away from home when he was a teenager and joined a circus, performing under the name The Daredevil Balto, the man without nerve. He eloped with a beautiful girl called Gertrude and together they performed an ‘Aerial Equilibrist' act for several years until his family enticed him to come home again. I loved examining the beautiful old photo album of Max and Gertrude's circus travels all over the world, including South Africa, India, East Indies, Philippines, New Guinea and the USA. One of his acts involved amazing acrobatic feats balancing on a chair on a tightrope, just like my character Jem. A huge thank you to Ken Murrell and Tony Murrell for sharing family stories and photos of Max, The Daredevil Balto.

Lastly, a huge thank you to my wonderful publisher, Zoe Walton, editor extraordinaire, Brandon VanOver, and the rest of my wonderful team at Random House: Julie Burland, Dorothy Tonkin, Zoe Bechara and Rebecca Diep. Thanks too to the cover designer Nanette Backhouse and my agent, Pippa Masson. You are all brilliant!