Post-war
For a village of Leigh's size, the arrival of a circus was an event that lodged itself firmly in local memory. Two residents in particular left accounts of these visits, and their recollections span half a century of travelling entertainment coming to the parish.
The first visit that we know of took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Cyril Seldon, who lived at Killicks Bank, was walking home from school one day around 1932 when he had an encounter he never forgot. He was carrying a trug of vegetables grown at home when an elephant's trunk stretched out towards them. The circus had pitched its tent in a field beyond the railway arch, on ground facing Paul's Farm. The elephants themselves had arrived by train at Hildenborough and were then walked along the road into Leigh, no doubt to the delight of anyone who happened to be watching.
Jack Lucas also recalled those visits. Inside the big top, audiences were treated to the standard acts of the era: there were two or three elephants, along with lions, horses, acrobats and clowns, all overseen by a ring master. One act stood out above the rest in Jack's memory. Known as 'the bottomless pit', it involved a box roughly six feet long and two feet deep. A man was first placed under hypnosis, then shut inside the box, which had been filled with sand and screwed down. Remarkably, he came out of it completely unharmed.
After the Second World War the circus began coming back to Leigh, and on some occasions a funfair travelled with it. The visits continued into living memory, with the last recorded occasion in the early 1970s.
That later visit left a vivid impression on Juliet Rowley, then five years old and living at Oak Cottage. She remembered a lion roaring on the Green just outside her home, and a llama which set about the cottage garden as though it were a meal. That same llama apparently bit a well-known and respected local lady, and when the incident was reported, the operator taking the 999 call was sceptical that a llama could really be the culprit.
By this time the enterprise was run by the Jump family, with Mr Jump at its head, then in his forties. It was very much a family concern: his mother and grandmother both played their part, as did his children who were in their teens, meaning that five generations of the Jumps had some involvement over the years. One of the younger daughters even had her own troupe of performing dogs. The acts on offer included clowns and jugglers, while the lion and the llama were kept in cages when not causing a stir.
The funfair drew big crowds, both from the village itself and from further afield. It also produced one last memorable tale: late one night a drunk trumpeter was found sitting on the War Memorial playing away. Suspicion at first fell on one of the Village Green Stompers, but the band members were eventually cleared of any involvement.