Josser

JOSSER is the powerful and moving account of Oxford-educated Nell Stroud’s life in the circus. It is also the story of the people of the circus: the trapeze artists, the clowns, the high-wire acts, the grooms, the llamas, the elephants – their commitment and expertise, their hard, marginalised, miraculous lives. Following a terrible riding accident which left her mother permanently brain-damaged, Nell ran away to the circus. What she found there was a life which became more real to her than the one she left behind. She found people who had sacrificed their lives for their art, who worked in all weathers, perfecting some of the most dramatic and beautiful acts ever seen. She found third-generation show-people who travelled around forgotten parts of Britain to bring their abstract, polished, multi-layered show to ever dwindling audiences. She found herself in an art form that soon, if we are not careful, we will lose. Whilst she has lived and worked among the circus people for several years, she is not one of them: she was not born in the circus. In their words she is a ‘josser’ a person in the circus from the outside world. This is her story.

‘The circus does cast a spell over some people. I felt overwhelmed by it. The circus filled up existence and left room for nothing else. What was there to do?