From collecting tickets to flying high

Life as a circus performer was the perfect fit for trapeze artist and all round talented performer Martin de Jager.

He had a disrupted childhood, where he became accustomed to moving from town to town as his father chased one job after the next.

With funds low and family life hard, de Jager’s life was to became a storybook ‘ran away to join the circus’ tale with a ‘happily ever after’ ending.

When he was 17-years-old, living in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, he saw posters advertising the Brian Boswell Circus and won a free ticket.

“That night, I fell in love with the trapeze act. I left my contact number with the organisers asking for a place in the circus family. I got a call two months later.”

He quit his job and signed up, but not before promising his mother he would send her money from his first salary which he still does to this day.

De Jager started at the bottom being the ‘jack of all trades’ employee, doing everything from collecting tickets at the door, to raising and lowering the tent, to animal care.

After two months de Jager made a potentially job-ending mistake when he first met circus owner Mr Brian Boswell.

“I was manning the doors when he just walked straight into the tent without a ticket. I confronted him and he told me who he was. I told him I had heard that a hundred times and threw him out.”

Even after being thrown out of his own circus by the newbie, Boswell was impressed and later said that de Jager “was definitely a keeper.”

He taught himself to juggle by juggling stones while he manned the doors.

A few months later the circus needed a new trapeze act and de Jager was up for the challenge.

“Only once I got all the way up did I realise I was afraid of heights. The whole tent and rigging shook. I was so scared!”

After 16 years de Jager can perform nine different acts including four aerial acts, and has broken his leg in seven places, torn two leg muscles in half and broken his ribs.

“When you stand behind that curtain and it opens to a full audience of happy children and adults who paid money to come and see you, it feels amazing.”

Now for the ‘happily ever after’. De Jager fell for the boss’s daughter, Georgina Boswell, and they now have a daughter, three-year-old Madison.