Silvers Circus
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Silver's Circus , a circus in Australia was started by Mervyn King (1908-2003) in 1946 by buying up postwar surplus army tents and other equipment. It became one of the finest circuses in the country and the first to cross the Nullarbor by road, then a corrugated dirt track full of potholes and bulldust.
In The Silver Road, a history of King's life, he told how three prize horses broke loose overnight; Leading a party of trackers and circus handlers to find the horses, King got lost in the desert. Remembering something that one of his old mentors had told him as a boy, King dropped the reins and let the horse lead him back to camp. It duly did, after a ride of about 150 kilometres, and the runaways were found.
Silver's Circus - for which he changed his stage name to Alwyn Silver - was successful but King saw television as a threat. He sold Silver's in 1953, admitting later the sale was premature since TV didn't make much of an impact on rural life until well into the 1960s.
Nowadays, Silvers Circus still travels Australia and is run by Anton and Anna Gasser since 1976.
