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A new book revealing the secrets of life in the big top celebrates the achievements of circus legend and Wookey Hole Caves owner, Gerry Cottle.
Mr Cottle's rise to fame is told in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed Of Running Away With The Circus, by Douglas McPherson.
Mr Cottle, a stockbroker's son, turned his back on suburban life and ran away to join the circus at 15.
He said: "I saw my first circus when I was eight and decided there and then I wanted to be a big circus boss... I wanted excitement and to see the world."
He landed a job clearing up after the elephants and quickly moved on to being the back end of a pantomime horse but it was not long before he took to the ring as Scats the Clown. He married a girl from a famous circus family, the Fossetts, and by the time he reached 25 he was ready to team up with fellow runaway Brian Austen and strike out on his own.
They and their wives performed nearly all the acts but Mr Cottle and Mr Austen got a big break when their circus was featured on TV documentary The Philpott Files and pictured on the cover of the Radio Times as the "smallest greatest show on earth". Mr Cottle became widely known through the BBC1 variety show, Seaside Special, broadcast on Saturday evenings from his big top.
In circus slang Mr Cottle was a josser - an outsider - but he became the first British showman to take a circus to Hong Kong and the Middle East. By the 1990s he was running the Chinese State Circus, Moscow State Circus and The Circus of Horrors, Britain's three biggest travelling shows.
He retired in 2003 and bought Wookey Hole Caves, one of Somerset's oldest tourist attractions, and went on to set up the Wookey Hole Circus School for local children, seemingly proof that "you can shake the sawdust off your shoes but you can never shake it out of your heart".