Councillors get free circus show

November 1984

The historic grandeur of Bray’s late Victorian town hall was shattered this week when a protesting deputation member went ape!

Well not ape really. More elephant, lion and bear in fact.

Lower Dargle Road resident, Charlie Grey, gave a colourful, graphic, and above all entertaining account of the trials and tribulations of living beside a circus.

By the time Mr Grey had finished, most of the councillors must have been wondering why all those people had bothered paying good money to get into the circus, when they could have had far better light relief listening to Mr Grey at Tuesday’s meeting.

He certainly had councillors, officials and members of the public laughing heartily as he outlined how lions’ roars, bears’ growls and elephants’ trumpets kept him and his neighbours awake all night during a recent visit by Chipperfields circus.

Just to make sure his hosts hadn’t missed the point, Mr Grey then treated them to a series of animal impressions which would have had even David Attenborough fooled.