Reunion An Article in Ipswich Evening Star May 4th 2000
LONDON, Paris and Milan in their time the Digger Pugh girls saw the lot as they travelled Europe with the biggest, brightest and most famous circuses of them all. NAOMI KILBY caught up with them at a special reunion in Ipswich and found out more about that glittering bygone era. The Digger Pugh Girls found fame but not fortune through the 1950s in Europe performing in various guises for Billy Smart, Bertram Mills and Chipperfields. And though they never became rich through their work. They certainly gathered a wealth of treasured memories - which no mount of money could ever buy.
Eileen Heuer was one of the Digger Pugh girls. Now aged 63 she lives in Bostock Road, Ipswich, with her husband Seigfried. They met while working together in Switzerland on Circus Knie the most famous circus company in Europe with more than 180 years of tradition.
On Sunday, Eileen held a reunion for as many of the other Digger Pugh Girls as she could muster and they spent an entire day at her house reliving memories and renewing friendships. Eileen and her friends, Louise Baldrick and Margaret Mildren from Essex, Beryl Coeffler, Marion Bakkioui from Germany, Valerie Ellis from Windsor, Sasha Lorenz from Watford and Shirley Ruzowski from America, all met in 1952.
"We were based at Hounslow in West London and that's where we used to train, but we went in different groups to different parts of the continent - some of us would be in Sweden or Spain and others in Germany or Italy," said Eileen.
Having been part of the Terry Juveniles, young performers, with former Brantham Bull landlord Melvyn Hayes (of It Ain't 'Alf Hot,Mum fame, he played gunner Gloria Beaumont), Eileen saw an advertisement in the performers' newspapers The Stage and The Variety Artists for girls needed to go to America.
She auditioned and became one of The Digger Pugh Girls. but she never went to America as at the tender age of 15 she was considered too young and problems with her passport led to a prosecution for Digger Pugh.
"We were actually called The Wallabys, and The Helicopter Girls.," said Eileen.
The plan with The Helicopter Girls was for them to perform from a rigging hanging below a helicopter. The girls trained for this perilous act, but the insurance was so high they never put it into practise.
"From there we were trained to do all sorts of things, on the trapeze, working with horses, whatever was needed. We were contracted out to different services, to Billy Smart's, Bertram Mills and Chipperfields. We used to chop and change.
"We loved it, that was our life. I've often been asked how did we do the things we did, but it was because it was something we loved doing.
"There were between 16 and 20 girls working together – swinging on high ladders, with ropes or in the ring. We worked with all kinds of animals. chimps and elephants and we were the first ones to do the can-can in the air."
Working flat out seven days a week the girls didn't know what a weekend was and their season would last for more or less ten months of the year.
They worked hard - and have still got the rope burn sears on their legs and arms to prove it - but they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
At 23, Eileen decided to give up the high life and settle down with her husband to bring up a family, They have four children and moved to Ipswich 11 years ago from Germany.
"We came here on holiday, fell in love with Ipswich and decided this was where we wanted to settle down," said Eileen.
"Yes it was hard at 23 to give it all up, but we've raised a family, run our own businesses, done the usual things that people do through their lives.
"It was probably the right decision to make."
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Please Contact: Peter@diggerpughgirls.freeserve.co.uk
