Circus skills in the spotlight
TO CELEBRATE Barrow WI’s birthday, the committee laid on a delicious buffet and Mary Thompson, once again, baked us a beautiful cake, which was admired by all.
Voting had to be done this evening for this year’s resolution, “Mental Health Matters”, which resulted in a clear vote of confidence, which will be carried forward to the Annual Meeting in Cardiff this June.
We were in for a “fun” evening when we were introduced to John Parnell, an expert in juggling and other circus skills, who was to demonstrate his art with the aid of an array of interesting equipment. Some people may have recognised him as being a semi-finalist on Britian’s Got Talent.
The circus originated in England and is celebrating it’s 250th anniversary this year. Philip Astley, known as “the Father of Modern Circus” was an equestrian, riding his horses in circles around an amphitheatre, later adding jugglers, tightrope walkers and clowns. He adopted the military style ring-master’s uniform after serving in the “Seven Year’s War”.
John, who has loved circuses since a boy, was on honeymoon in Jersey when he visited a shop selling juggling equipment.
He joined a group on the island where he learnt basic juggling skills. Returning home he found he could not continue his tuition so he formed the “Nuneaton Juggling Club” in 1994.
Today, he is also known as the “Hoop Guy” as hulahooping is a big passion. He visits many venues, parties, schools, social groups, etc, demonstrating his equipment, balls, clubs, diabolos, spinning plates, ribbon sticks, rings of saturn, stilts and uni-cycles and he showed us how to use them, making it look so easy. He learnt tight-rope walking at forty seven!
His philosophy is; you are never too old to learn new skills and it keeps you younger.
We took this on board and finished the evening attempting the easier tricks, spinning plates and hula-hooping and thanking John for his entertaining show.
Next month’s meeting will be at the Conservative Club Function Room on 13th June at 7.30pm when we will learn how to “pipe” from Tom Phillips.