LADY OF THE RING

Tracy Jones ran away with a circus as a teenager and now she runs her own big top!

- DOUGLAS MCPHERSON

There aren't many jobs in which the new girl -gets knives thrown at her by the boss. But standing in front of a target while circus owner Phillip Gandey threw blades that hammered home within inches of her was Tracy Jones's baptism of fire into life in the big top.

"I trusted him completely," says Tracy, who ran away with the circus as a 16-year-old and today is ringmistress of her own show, Circus Funtasia.

"I think because I was young, I didn't have much fear. I'd try anything."

Growing up in a tiny Welsh village, Tracy had no idea that a life of spotlights and sequins awaited her.

When she was 15, she took a weekend job looking after the horses of local stunt rider Gerard Naprous, who went on to work on films such as Rob Roy and TV series Game Of Thrones.

One summer, Gerard announced he was joining Gandey's Circus for a short engagement and Tracy went with him as horse groom.

"I didn't even know what a circus was!" she laughs. "We were meant to be there for four weeks, but I loved it so much that I went home and said, 'Mum, I'm going to join the circus.'

"Mum was mortified. She tried to talk me out of it, but my heart was set. I packed my bag, they put me on a train and off I went.

"Later on, once my parents had visited the show and saw what it was about, they loved it."

One of Tracy's first jobs was parading around the ring with a snake draped around her shoulders.

"I was a little bit scared of snakes," Tracy confesses. "But you get used to it. Then people start to teach you things. I learned a bit of trapeze, and trick riding on horses."

Her speciality became twirling and throwing poses on a vertical rope called the corde lisse.