pedro the clown

26/04/2024

YES, I am worried. Very worried indeed.
And, if you are wondering why, then just take a look at the First Division league table.
It's the final day of the season tomorrow, and we still don't know whether Lincoln City will get through to the play-offs yet or not.
It all comes down to tomorrow's game at 12.30 when City are at home to league champions Portsmouth.
Portsmouth and Derby County are both assured of promotion and it looks good for third place Bolton and Peterborough United (in fourth spot) to be in the play-offs.
Now, here is the big question. Two more of the high-flyers are also in with a chance. There are four teams that could. Barnsley are number five with 75 points, Lincoln are in sixth spot with 74 points, and just outside the play-offs (and only just) are Oxford United also with 74 and Blackpool with 73. And every one of them plays tomorrow and exactly at the same time!
A win for Lincoln will guarantee them a place in the play-offs. No worries.
But if we don't win, and the results go well for Oxford or Blackpool it just doesn't bear thinking about!
And apart from all that pressure, I don't want the final whistle to be delayed for any of the games at all, because I want to catch the bus into Lincoln so I can go to the April Fair!!!

29/09/2023

I've not been on to my facebook for a while now. So I was more than a little surprised to see how many additional followers have joined recently.
I am delighted to see so many new friends and followers, and my very grateful thanks.
The Pedro character was created by myself during the 1980s when I was appearing in a summer season show at the Embassy Centre in Skegness. I had started out as a juggler and rope-spinner in the late 1960s, but because there weren't very many of us in the cast at Skegness, I decided to create an extra 'face.'
But Pedro quickly took over and it wasn't long before I was doing more work as the clown than I was as a juggler.
Pedro retired at Christmas 2021, when I had done more than 2,000 performances as a circus-style entertainer. At the moment, I have no immediate plans to bring him back again - although, I suppose, we never know.
If you want to find out more, my first book "Hold the Front Page and Send in the Clowns" by me (Peter Brown) was published by Paul Mould Publishing in 2007 and there may still be copies on line somewhere.
Many thanks for your interest.

25/05/2023

Between January 1967 and December 2021, I did a total of 2,018 public appearances as a circus-style entertainer. Now, bearing in mind that I am talking about more than half-a-century of my life, you might be wondering how on earth I past my time! But, in fairness, I must point out that I did do other things as well including 57 years in newspapers!

Anyway, the reason for all this, is that today I am marking a milestone in my life. It's 25 years ago since Lynn and I first met, and it happened during one of my appearances as Pedro the Clown.
It was Spring Bank Holiday Monday May 25, 1998. and I was appearing at Elsham Hall Country Park. not far from Brigg, right through the weekend. It was one of my one-man shows and there were three performances a day, sometimes in a marquee and sometimes inside the nearby Barn Theatre.
Lynn was a Hull University student at the time, and had a part-time job in charge of the catering at the Barn Theatre.
She must have taken pity on a hard-working clown, because, a quarter-of-a-century later, we are married and still happily together.

05/04/2023

See story below.

05/04/2023

We have all got pictures at home like this - and this is mine. It was taken 70 years ago at Westgate Junior School in Lincoln, when our class gathered out on the back playground for this picture to mark the Coronation of the Queen..
Our headmaster (Mr Meldrum) is on the right and our teacher (Miss or Mrs Dixon) is on the left.
The old air raid shelter is back left; the Rectory wall on behind the group and the trees were in the old Wickham Gardens.
Most of the boys were in fancy dress. I remember my mum made me one in red, white and blue, and I was "a little boy from Holland honouring the Queen's Coronation." I was towards the end of the second row from the left, two in from the chimney sweep and next to the pirate!
I would just have turned eight years old at the time.
Oh, happy days!!!

10/02/2023

If Lincoln City Council goes ahead with its controversial plan to scrap the Christmas Market, I can't help thinking it would be a bit like Blackpool calling off its annual illuminations because they want to turn the tourists away, or the powers that be in Edinburgh abandoning their summer festival because they are frightened of attracting people in from all over the world!
I just don't get it. For the past four decades, I have never missed a Lincoln Christmas Market. And every year, I don't go merely once, I visit it on almost every one of the four days. So, yes, it has become a big part of my life.
It is something I am very proud of. And what's wrong with that.
If Lincoln wants to be a tourist city, then why on earth is it even thinking about taking away its biggest annual crowd-puller?
It was Britain's first Christmas Market and it became the blue print for all the others which now take place all over the country.
Surely the City Council won't scrap it and replace it with something which they hope will be far less successful! Where would be the sense in that???

05/10/2022

29/08/2022

SORRY ABOUT HAVING TO PRINT THE FOILLOWING PICTURE ON ITS SIDE, but I don't seem to have the ability to turn it the right way round without losing the top and the bottom bits!
In those far-off days before the internet, and we all know well in advance, where almost every British circus is going to be for days (or even several months) to come, one of the greatest pleasures for young circus fans like myself was to stumble across the posters for a travelling circus, quite by chance.
And, if it just happened to be a poster for a circus you had never even heard of, then it was an even bigger thrill! That's what happened to me in he late 1960s when I discovered this poster in Bardney - mid-way between Lincoln and Horncastle. In subsequent years, the Premier Circus became Yelding's which I featured on this page a few days ago when I marked the 50th anniversary of its first and only visit to the Lincolnshire Showground. Hope the poster brings back a few happy memories for fellow circus fans.

I

25/08/2022

It was never destined to become the biggest circus ever to visit Lincoln. But 50 years ago, this weekend, the Yelding family show became a part of the city's circus history.
Because it was on August 27, 1972, that it became the first travelling circus to be allowed to open on a Sunday in Lincoln for the first time ever.
The fondly-remembered Yeldings - Dolly and Andy and their son Bobby along with and their horses and ponies - brought their single-mast Big Top, capable of seating around 100 people, to the Lincolnshire County Showground.
It was the first circus ever to occupy a part of the site, just a couple of miles beyond the city boundary. And it was there - along with Gordon Sherratt and his family fair - as part of the Sturton & Stow District Motor Sports Grass Track Car Racing Gala.
I wasn't able to be there on the opening day, but I was certainly there on the Sunday when there were performances at 1.20, 3.30, 4.30 and 6.00 and I did my juggling act in every show.
I had met the family possibly a year or so previously when they had first enabled me to achieve my childhood ambition of appearing in a circus ring. Over the years, I was with them for some 30 performances.
They were great people and played a very important part in my working life which spanned more than 2,000 shows.
These days, Sunday shows are regularly held in Lincoln and all over the country as well, but the Yeldings were the first to open there.
The poster pictured below is typical of the ones used by the family at the time.

02/06/2022

.. AND NOW, THERE ARE SEVEN OF THEM!
From today, there are no longer six books in my long-running series of Chipwell tales. There's seven of them.
(Yes, I can almost hear the groans as I write those words!)
And - it gets even worse. Because, I have got to admit, this is the biggest one so far in the series. There are more than 100,000 words, not counting the inevitable Trivia Puzzle; a page of quotes from the story and an explanation of how the book came to finish up with its unusual title!
But it's not all bad news! The one saving grace I can offer, is that the cover price has remained unchanged. Just like all the others in the series, it is still £10 - exactly as it was when the first one appeared way back in 2016.
"How do you do it?" I hear you scream. (Or is it more a case of "Why do you do it?"). Yes. That could perhaps be more accurate!
Should you want to be among the very few to get hold of a copy of the book. Chipwell Boys' Sniff of Scandal, or any of the others in the series, then just click on the link below.
But beware: Your support could lead to yet another book in the series, in the not-too-distant future!
You have been warned!

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/peter-brown/chipwell-boys-sniff-of-scandal/paperback/product-4z766v.html?fbclid=IwAR2wd9VodDyYpKjlMWO6ysn6qe42lWc6FT2X3jFeFWz5friMrb5bvkb87To&page=1&pageSize=4