Ringmaster of a bygone era

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FEATURES THURSDAY, 12 JULY 2001

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,854104a1938,FF.html

Ringmaster of a bygone era

05 JULY 2001

By BARRY HAWKINS

 

There's always been a romantic image of the Big Top as a refuge for

runaways, as in " Goodbye cruel world, I'm off to join the circus " .

Charlie Ridgway's refuge in his declining years was the memory of circuses

as they once were - the magic three rings with lions, tigers and elephants,

trapeze artists, clowns and jugglers watched by spellbound, sellout crowds.

He never really understood why the big, elaborately staged circus lost its

appeal.

Or why animal rights campaigners attacked him for, they claimed, exploiting

exotic animals.

Television drew the curtain on so much live entertainment from the middle of

last century.

But Ridgway believed it was just a matter of time before people realised a

flickering tube was no substitute for the real thing.

He waited in vain for them to flock back to his tent, and to make things

worse he was accused of cruelty to his animals, a charge he never accepted.

Change had left him stranded.

Sons Charlie jr and Cary adjusted, forming mini-circuses of their own to

carry on a family tradition spanning 150 years on both sides of the Tasman.

Charlie Ridgway was born while the circus was in Christchurch in 1917, the

eldest of seven children. He grew up mucking out animal pens, putting up and

pulling down tents, running errands, selling programmes, raking sawdust.

He was catapulted into a manager's job as a 16-year-old when his father

Henry was killed in a train crash in Australia.

Their circuit was mainly the country towns of New South Wales and wherever

in New Zealand their fancy took them. There are family photos of Charlie

Ridgway with his brothers driving horse-drawn wagons on the way to their

next venue.

Circuses were big attractions during the 1930s and business boomed till the

outbreak of war, when they were forced into recess.

Charlie Ridgway spent the war years in Australia, mostly promoting

vaudeville. He also arranged regular entertainment for troops, shows

featuring Bob Hope and Jack Benny, stars even then. After all the austerity,

Ridgway sensed a public demand for spectacle and put together over the next

decade what was described as the largest travelling menagerie in the

Southern Hemisphere. There were more than 100 animals, including lions,

tigers, leopards, elephants, camels, llama, monkeys and baboons.

Ridgways didn't have things all their own way; Wirth's Circus was competing

for the punters' money, along with Bullen's and Sole's circuses, while later

Australia's biggest circus company, Ashton's, also sent a troupe here.

There were clashes over venues - often two circuses arrived in the same town

at once, and confrontations as circus hucksters made increasingly outlandish

claims for the quality of their acts. Charlie Ridgway was in the thick of

it, enjoying every minute. This was the stuff of his memories. Then the

decline set in.

Big international circuses from Moscow and China, without animals, later

dragged in the crowds, but they weren't really circuses in the traditional

sense. Charlie jr's mini-circus, along with Cary's Circus Magic, still work

the

country towns, offering low-cost deals to families with young children. They

have horses, dogs and llamas, but focus mainly on people acts.

To the consternation of the animal rights campaigners, Charlie jr still has

one chimpanzee, Mr Muggins. Cary took his remaining chimp to a wildlife

sanctuary in Zambia earlier this year.

They recognised times had changed and, reluctantly, changed with them.

But their father never did.

Charles Henry Ridgway, circus owner: B Christchurch, May 15, 1917; m Pat

1947(2s); d Levin June 30, 2001. Sources: Cary Ridgway, Post library. --

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