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When Ginnett's Circus had come to Belfast, Josie had wanted to become part of one: an acrobat was what he really wanted to be, but in any case an 'omie', which means a performer, a circus man. So he practised in every spare minute that he could. While Protestants and Roman Catholics fought in the town's streets, and Josie's mother worked in the steamy heat of her laundry, he'd be playing truant from school, perfecting handsprings, backbends, dreaming of the Big top and the golden glimmer of the gasoliers. Then late at night his mother might find him fast asleep with both legs wrapped around his neck. Josie achieved his ambition, and the Circus took him, and later in life he worked in a show with which Dame Laura Knight travelled for several seasons; the old clown and his wife became close friends of hers. In this book Dame Laura has set down Josie's memories just as he told them to her; over countless cups of tea, in the shadow of the great dome of canvas, or while the wagons rumbled on, and on through town and village and countryside and with men like Josie - 'omies', born to the life and knowing no other! - chatting, dreaming over the reins. With forty-two monochrome drawings, endpapers and full-colour frontispiece by the author. [editor summary]