There are elephants stitched on the cushions in the cosy trailer Bobby and Moira Roberts call home. There are elephant pictures on the walls, china elephant statues on the shelves and elephant magnets on the fridge. In the kitchen, a framed tapestry of an elephant looking sad says: ‘I’ll never forget.’
There can be no doubt that the couple loved the animals that for more than half a decade were their constant companions on the vast farm they own in the genteel village of Polebrook in Northamptonshire. ‘Bobby lived and breathed elephants,’ Moira says simply. ‘And they loved him.’
Against the odds, given the circumstances under which I’d met them, they granted me an interview. Though wary, they shared with me their memories of life in the golden days of the Great British Circus. They travelled the world meeting royalty, top brass and the cream of the celebrity world, with their troupe of six elephants in tow. At one point, they had fifteen elephants. They were known to everyone they met as Bobby, Moira and ‘the girls’.
Anne, the couple’s ever-present companion throughout their circus lives, was fed by Her Majesty The Queen, performed for the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and once met English comedian Freddie Starr. She swam in the sea at Blackpool, went up the Eiffel Tower and appeared on television. Whatever your opinions on the ethics of elephants in circuses, it’s hard not to be fascinated by the Robertses’ lives. Their memories are of elephants travelling by train and parading through the streets to the circus, cheered on by the townsfolk. They remember circus performances dominating the Christmas television schedules. Bobby was once a celebrity known as ‘the elephant man’. It was a different age.
And no one knows more about it than him. Born into the industry, Bobby Roberts is the seventh generation of his family to work in the circus and can trace his lineage back hundreds of years to Nelson’s time. His children and their children have followed him into the business and his grandchildren are the tenth generation to work in the circus.
Anne was bought by Bobby’s father, Bobby Roberts senior, and was later inherited by his son. At that time, elephants were part of all big circuses. And the Robertses began their career with the very biggest and best. They were members of the famous dynasty of Sir Robert Fossett, one of the originators of the circus. Bobby, now seventy-two, founded his own Bobby Roberts Super Circus in 1993 but cut his teeth at his late father and uncle’s circus.
Their history is fascinating. For nearly forty years, as the Robertses tell me, Bobby senior and his brother Tommy ran one of the most popular travelling circuses in Britain. Bobby recalls when his father and uncle started the circus just after the war and didn’t have any proper transporting equipment. ‘I remember at the old farm where we used to live they had a little old bus and they used to stick the poles through the windows because they didn’t have a lorry. They always put on a good show.’ Bobby senior enjoyed a distinguished career in the industry and for many years served as honorary president of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain.
Bobby senior’s father – and Bobby junior’s grandfather – was Paul Otto, an acrobat who came to Britain in the early twentieth century and married Mary Fossett, the sister of Sir Robert Fossett. Born Robert Otto Fossett in 1912, in Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire, he later took the surname Roberts, as did his brother Tommy. Having started his career as a clown at the age of eleven, he moved on to a solo bareback riding act and later worked as an acrobat alongside his brother, not just in the circus but also in theatres. Through his life on stage, he met Kitty Mednick, a member of a performing family musical act. Robert and Kitty married in 1941, and the following year Bobby junior, their first son, was born.
The brothers soon moved on from performing to running their own travelling circuses and started to lay the foundations for what would later define them: animal training. They renamed their circus the Robert Bros’ Hip Hip Zoo Ray Mammoth Circus and acquired their first elephant from Dudley Zoo in 1946. The circus attracted huge audiences and became so successful that it was soon producing animal acts for other shows and circuses, as well as major events, and employed large numbers of animal trainers, clowns and other acts. Bobby senior specialised in training elephants, horses, ponies, dogs and llamas and passed his husbandry skills on to his son. By the early 1950s, the brothers had a full circus and stage show, another summer circus in London and one on the Isle of Man.
At this point, Bobby junior entered the limelight He first presented the elephants in 1961 and later appeared with them several times before the Queen and the Royal Family. By the early 1970s, the circus had a dozen or more elephants as well as horses, ponies and exotic animals and Bobby had taken over the animal showing.
As the big circuses Billy Smart and Bertram Mills disappeared, the Robertses’ circus became one of the biggest on the road and later secured a lucrative contract to show its performances on the BBC. The family soon became household names and their performances were shown around the world. An episode of Songs of Praise was filmed at their circus in around 2000. Meanwhile, as the brothers’ families grew, they decided to split and Bobby formed the Roberts Brothers Super Circus with his sons. In 1993, Bobby began his own circus, Bobby Roberts Super Circus, after splitting with his younger brother Tommy, who went on to show horses and ponies at Zippo’s Circus.
The death of Bobby Roberts senior, one of the great circus proprietors, heralded the end of the golden age of the Great British travelling circus, which had first been created in Britain in 1768. Nevertheless, Bobby junior continued with his father’s legacy. Like almost all circus people, he had started as a clown, making his stage debut at the age of four. As a child and young man, he had learned acrobatics, bareback riding and wire walking but his proudest achievement of all was his work with elephants. Bobby says he was a leading elephant husbandry expert and zoos, circuses and handlers from all over the world sought him out for his knowledge and experience. He also toured all over Europe with his elephants, telling the BBC: ‘I’ve always worked with animals, but since I was about four years old I’ve come in with my dad and trained the horses and trained everything you can think of. Elephants were my thing.’ Until 2011, and the fallout from Anne’s story, he had a good reputation in circus circles for animal husbandry and his performances still drew large, if gradually dwindling, crowds around the country. Bureaucracy took its toll on the business too and Bobby referred to it as a ‘dream for health and safety officers’.
Asked about his favourite memories of Anne and the other elephants, he says it was the ‘simple things’. ‘They all had individual traits,’ he recalls. ‘Bev [Beverly] used to tap on the floor with her trunk, Anne used to talk to you, another used to screech through her tongue like them big fish – you know, killer whales.’
And the elephants had a varied life, to say the least. He would take them to swim in the sea at Blackpool before the crowds arrived. ‘When I took them on the beach one would like to go in, one would like to roll in the sand. Some of them didn’t want to go in if I didn’t go in, or they wanted me with them,’ he explains, adding that Anne enjoyed swimming. He shows me pictures of her in the sea with the other elephants. ‘I used to go and sit on the steps and the elephants used to go down on the beach. They’d either swim or roll. Janie used to run along and kick all the sandcastles over from the day before and I used to whistle them and they’d all go up the steps and we’d come back.’
But, as with everything about the way of life they knew, it wasn’t to last. A member of the public informed the council of what was happening and Bobby was prevented from taking them there. Moira says: ‘She was one of those do-gooder people who think it’s cruel in the circus. She managed to stop us going on the beach. They used to get so much pleasure from going down the beach.’ His voice tinged with nostalgia, Bobby adds: ‘I’d been going there for years. Elephants and horses and everythin’.’
Bobby is happiest speaking about the past; he resists any talk of the present. When I ask him how he feels about losing the circus and the court case, he fidgets uncomfortably. ‘A bit sad, like,’ he says. ‘When you love something so much, you know, it’s a difficult thing. The only thing that I do have is I have all the memories and the people that come [to see] me from all over the world. That’s all I’ve got left.’
He gestures at a huge photo frame bursting with pictures of happier times from the circus days. A good proportion of the pictures are of members of the Royal Family meeting the elephants. There is even one with the Queen feeding an elephant. ‘The Queen fed Anne a bun that day,’ he recalls. ‘Then Princess Anne wanted to know where her bun was. That was the following day. We thought we’d get into trouble but Princess Anne said: “Where’s my bun?” so I gave her six pieces of sugar and she fed all the elephants sugar.’
In the picture of the Queen, Bobby has his arm around her back and confesses that he didn’t realise he’d broken Royal protocol by doing that. On another occasion he shook her gloveless hand, not realising this was also frowned upon. He is glowing in his praise of the Queen. ‘The first time you speak to her she puts you right at ease,’ he says. ‘Brilliant they are, the whole lot of them.’ Moira looks wistful, adding: ‘We don’t meet Royal Family anymore. We’re outcasts.’ To which Bobby hilariously replies: ‘Yeah, we do. I was at Buckingham Palace the other day with the Water Rats.’
Bobby is a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, an exclusive fraternity of British performers that includes Queen guitarist Brian May, comedian Ken Dodd and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as a companion member. When asked how they reacted to the news of his conviction, he is resolute. ‘They were 100 per cent behind me,’ he says. Asked if it was difficult for him to face them all, he says: ‘No, I was with twenty-odd [Water Rats] yesterday and they all know me so they all know that it was a fallacy.’
Other photographs at Bobby and Moira’s home show scores of smiling celebrities in the frame: Bernard Bresslaw from the Carry On films, cast members of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Hi-de-Hi!, as well as the magician Paul Daniels and the comedian Jimmy Logan, a close family friend, who the couple named their grandson after.
Bobby tells me Anne met a number of celebrities over the years, including Keith Harris and Orville the duck, as well as the singer and broadcaster Aled Jones. But Moira points out: ‘Anne was a celebrity. People came to meet her.’ The couple also worked with Jimmy Savile a few times and their daughter Kitty was once told to sit on his knee for a photo. They recall her refusing and being very unhappy about the whole situation. ‘She must have known,’ says Moira.
The Robertses have fond memories of performing in the Berlin Tattoo. Major Michael Parker, a colourful character who organised elaborate state events for the Queen and others, summoned Bobby and the elephants. Moira recalls: ‘We got our army numbers, the elephants got their army numbers and we joined the Royal Anglians.’ She shows me a trophy they presented her with, which says ‘To Bobby, Moira and the girls’. ‘The girls were the elephants,’ she adds. ‘They were always Bobby’s girls.’
At one point, she says the Royal Air Force men made a bizarre request to Bobby. ‘The RAF men were sick of the Royal Household Cavalry and they said: “Would you mind, Bobby, if we took the camel to the officers’ mess” because they used to all bring the little Jack Russells – you know what the cavalry are like. Bobby said: “Help yourself.” So the camel went for his dinner in the officers’ mess.’ Another time, they were again hired by Major Michael Parker, who wanted them to go down the Mall with the cannons behind them, while he rode the lead elephant and a brigadier rode Anne. Moira says: ‘Michael Parker looked down on Bobby and said: “They’ll be alright, Bob, when the Red Arrows fly overhead, won’t they?”’ Bobby adds: ‘That’s how much notice I had. The planes flew over the top of Buckingham Palace. They [the elephants] was alright but I thought: “We’ve got about thirty-five, forty seconds…” Luckily, they never took no notice.’ He adds: ‘Them sort of things, I used to take them in my stride in them days because I knew every one of them [the elephants].’
He also recalls how clever the elephants were. During one performance in Brighton, they were given accommodation with electric cables in a box. Bobby refused to allow the elephants in there until they were covered up. Eventually, the staff came up with the idea of knocking nails into the box in the hope that would deter the elephants. But the next day, they returned to find every single nail bent over by the elephants. Bobby says knowingly: ‘They didn’t touch it but they were just saying: “We know what we’re doing.”’
The circus coming to town was once heralded by the elephants getting off at the train station and marching to the showground as townsfolk cheered them on. ‘You’d get thousands of people lining the streets to watch,’ Bobby says. ‘Everyone would know the animals would be arriving at the station at 11am and the whole town would turn out to watch and applaud. The elephants were so popular. They’d hold each other’s trunks while they marched down the street.’ He says on one occasion the elephants arrived at a train station they had been to previously and remembered there being a tap on the wall. One wandered over to the wall and ripped off the pipes with her trunk so they could all drink. ‘I didn’t get to the tap in time,’ explains Bobby. ‘She’d pulled it off the wall because there were lead pipes there – yanked it off the wall and was drinking it.’ He says that the stationmaster was unimpressed.
Bobby concludes: ‘I done some ridiculous things over the years. I never thought about it. People say: “Oh, you can’t do that,” and I’d do it, you know.’ He tells stories of how he had to get an elephant to cross a bridge for a music video for the band The Beautiful South: he cycled across first and she simply followed him. He also convinced an elephant to pick a raffle ticket by using the wet part of its trunk to stick to the paper. Once, on the set of the 1993 film The Secret Garden, he even got an elephant to lift a table with its trunk during an earthquake scene. When in Edinburgh for a charity event at a manor house, he was told to bring Anne round the side, but he decided it was too cold and walked her in through the front door. The stories are incredible and often star Anne, who became the couple’s last companion.
She was a quiet elephant, they say. ‘Anne didn’t do anything except look at you,’ Moira recalls. ‘But she liked to go for a walk, I’ll tell you that. She’d be out here in this field with an electric fence, but the clever little sod knew how to get out and Bobby had to go and get her from the woods at the bottom of our fields.’ She says Anne liked to roam free on the eleven acres of land that they had at the winter quarters. ‘Bobby used to say: “I’ll go and get her in a minute because that’ll give her a chance to wander about and rub herself against the tree trunks” and then he’d go and bring her home. She never ran away.’
Moira also tells of how, in 2003, Anne decided to wander free on Ayr Racecourse in Scotland while they were touring with the circus. The elephant ran through the streets before finally being returned. ‘She decided that she would go and visit someone’s garden and people wouldn’t understand that she was just away for a walk,’ Moira explains. But the people who owned the garden did not understand, ‘and we had to sort it out’. She says the headlines came thick and fast about how Anne had run away from the circus but adds: ‘We knew how to put up with it then.’
The 9ft-tall elephant used to stand on her hind legs, lie down and pirouette in the circus ring for ten minutes in every show. She apparently liked to search people’s pockets for sweets and would travel up and down the country in a 47ft articulated truck.
As Bobby recounts the past, Moira sits beside him protectively, helping when he struggles for words, correcting him when he forgets dates and prompting stories. She is hugely defensive of him and almost acts as his bridge between his past and present, protecting him from the harsh realities of life outside the circus. Those who know the couple say he relies on her utterly. It is Moira who agrees to the interview for this book, while Bobby says he would rather not have participated. She feels she has the right to defend the industry more than most as she wasn’t born into it and instead ran away to join the circus.
Brought up in the sleepy market town of Castle Douglas in southern Scotland, Moira went to live with her aunt in Glasgow at the age of fourteen following the death of her parents. Her aunt was in the fairground business, which shared space with the circus that Edinburgh-born Bobby was in. At the age of twenty-three, Moira became an usherette in the circus to bring in a bit of money. Despite being five years his senior – she is now seventy-seven – she caught the then eighteen-year-old Bobby’s eye – ‘because she was the only fairground person who didn’t smoke and didn’t drink,’ he says – and they became an item.
But their families were less than impressed. Hers hated ‘circus people’ – when Bobby came round, her uncle would say: ‘That jungle boy’s here again’ – and Bobby’s family, the circus dynasty, ‘abhorred’ anyone who wasn’t circus. Bobby’s father called her ‘that loudmouth traveller’. Moira says carefully: ‘It wasn’t easy.’ But the star-crossed lovers forged ahead regardless. They celebrated their fifty-year anniversary in 2015. As Moira recalled at the time: ‘Bobby’s dad’s stipulation – and I gave into him like a fool – was that I should join the circus for a year and if we still felt the same way, we’d get married. So I joined the circus at the beginning of ’65 and we got married at the end of ’65 and it’s fifty years now so I like to think we proved them wrong.’ Bobby is also unapologetic: ‘We fell in love and we’ve been ever since,’ he says.
For Moira, it was something of a baptism of fire. ‘I was a complete novice when I joined the circus,’ she admits. Having lived a sheltered early life, the circus was different to anything she’d ever known. Suddenly she was surrounded by exotic and otherworldly creatures: lions, tigers, elephants and even polar bears, which Bobby’s father kept and trained. She first met Anne when she went down to the circus winter quarters at Polebrook for Bobby’s twenty-first birthday.
Her first job was to care for the baby elephants that would arrive at the circus as four-year-olds. She sat up all night with them and cooked them a kind of sweetened rice pudding. Anne was one of those elephants and the couple recall that she loved having her tongue tickled and would pull them in for a cuddle by gently wrapping her trunk round their legs. ‘I was terrified at the beginning,’ Moira admits. ‘They were only little tiny things. I watched Bobby perform but I’d never been close up to the animals.’ But she soldiered on. ‘I soon grew to love them just as much as he did,’ she says.
As a member of the circus, Moira was also expected to perform. Luckily, she was already pretty nifty with a bow and arrow from her work at the fairground so Bobby’s mother came up with an act for her as an Indian to Bobby’s cowboy, with his sharp shooting and horses. Unfortunately, one day the performance ended in disaster. Moira recalls: ‘I used to hold a balloon in my mouth and I would blow it up against the target and Bobby would shoot the balloon. We didn’t have any of the normal balloons so we were using some that we bought at the shop. He fired one shot and it wouldn’t burst the balloon and the gun jammed and I put my finger up to move the balloon at the same time as he shot.’ Her finger was blown off. Incredibly, she continued the performance. ‘We carried on. He didn’t know – no idea.’
Eventually, they finished the act and Moira went to the hospital but the doctors told her there was nothing they could do. ‘They said it would be like a cabbage so I said: “Take the damn thing off, it’s no good to me!”’ She shows me her stump, incongruous next to the long scarlet gel nails on every other finger. Sadly, Bobby had managed to blow off her ring finger – and her wedding and engagement ring with it. ‘The ringmaster searched and about three or four days later, he came back with a diamond,’ she says. They had the engagement ring rebuilt. She still has the original wedding ring, which bears the shape of the bullet.
As Bobby’s wife, Moira was also expected to know how to ride an elephant, and when visited by three sisters of the Fossett circus dynasty, she was obliged to teach them these skills. ‘The youngest one couldn’t ride,’ she says. ‘So Bobby’s father said: “Get Moira in there and show her how to do it.” I’d never been on an elephant’s back in my life but because I was married to Bobby, it was expected that I would just do it and I had to pretend that I knew how to ride an elephant. I did it because I think I was more afraid of Bobby’s father than I was of falling off the elephant.’
Unfortunately, not all her experiences with elephants were so positive. The couple were booked to go to Paris to perform for French President François Mitterrand, who was entertaining then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on a state visit in the 1980s. The elephants were adorned with 18-carat gold harnesses and Indian outfits for the occasion. They had rehearsed the show in the morning and everything had been perfect but as they began the performance and led the elephants in, watched by the heads of state, a dog ran under their elephant, Maureen. ‘Maureen stepped back and on to my toe,’ Moira recalls. As always, though, they continued the parade. ‘When we got to the end and got the elephants comfortable and bedded down, I said: “We better go to the hospital now”,’ she says. A French doctor with a cigarette dangling from his mouth patched her up. ‘The night before, when we arrived, they put us in a hotel you wouldn’t put a dog in, so we slept in the car,’ she adds. ‘So when it came to rehearsal time the next morning, we said: “Unless you get us a decent hotel for us to wash and clean in, we’re not doing the parade.” So they put us in the George V on the Champs-Élysées. When we’d finished and we came back to have some sleep before we left the next day to go back to Scotland, we arrived in the George V and they’ve got Chinese rugs as you go in and my blood was dripping all the way up to the room. I said: “They’ll never forget we were here!”’