Caroline Maude Troy , circus director in Australia Born 1916-05-20 . I was born Caroline Maude Troy on May 20, 1916. My father was rushing my mother by horse and cart to a hospital to give birth but they had to stop and I was born under the cart. I grew up in Weemelah, near Mungindai in northern NSW, where my father worked on a farm. He worked very hard, chopping down trees, digging holes for posts and putting up fences. When I was about six I went to see my first circus, little realising that I would later become part of a circus family. My family later moved to Angeldool (north of Lightning Ridge) where I taught local children, including my brothers, how to read. In 1934, I saw my second circus. It was named Colto’s and among the performers was a handsome young man named Mick Lennon. His real name was William but he got that nickname because somebody once thought he was Irish. Mick and his father Bill had originally been part of Lennon Bros Circus, which was started by Mick’s grandmother Mary Lennon in 1893, but somewhere along the line they had become part of Colto’s. In 1936 we got married and I became part of the Lennon circus Clan. At the show I was nicknamed Dot or Dollie because I was so small. While on the road, my first child Ronnie was born at Lismore. I later left the performing to Mick and our sons Lindsay (born in 1938) and Phillip (born in 1941). Ron and our daughter Jan (born in 1944) travelled with the show as children but later made lives for themselves outside the show.
