Belinda Murrell: Bringing Australian History To Life | Page 16
INSPIRATION
CIRCUS RUNAWAY
AUSTRALIANS LOVE A CIRCUS AND THE ROMANTIC NOTION OF RUNNING OFF TO JOIN ONE. IT TURNS
OUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT ONE OF BELINDA’S RELATIVES DID. SHE ONLY UNCOVERED THE FACT WHEN
SHE STARTED DOING SOME RESEARCH . . .
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.
From memoirs to blogs
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.
Fascinating women
I was particularly inspired by the stories of several
fascinating young women who grew up performing
in Australian circuses, including bareback riders May
Belinda with
he
Wirth and Peggy St Leon, elephant trainer Eileen
visiting circus r daughter Emily doing so
me fun resear
es.
Wirth, and artists Dollie Lennon, La Belle Marie,
ch! Belinda an
d her family
had a fabulous
Dorothy Ashton and Lilian Bullen.
time
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
Equilibrist’
research assistants – Emily Murrell and Rob Murrell. We had
act for several years
great fun exploring circus lots and meeting performers.
until his family enticed him to come home
The family connection
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
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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.