"THE show must go on."

As the slogan demanded, it did but only just and in a less daring style.

By special railway excursions, horse and cart and Shanks’s pony, they converged on a six acre field outside Southampton. Shops closed and the town centre was virtually deserted.

Thousands waited for the opportunity to be able to tell their families in later years “I was there.”.

And the reason, they witnessed the only local appearance of a unique international showman Charles Blondin, the adventurer who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

But his outdoor act at Bannisters Court was sadly not to be as spectacular as he and spectators had wished through circumstances over which he had no control.

The weather!.

Preparations for the show on September 23, 1861, began two days earlier with the erection of two poles for bearing the heavy rope. They were to have been 84ft high and supported with guy ropes, but within hours the wind that had been little more than a zephyr grew in such strength that it blew one pole down and spliced the other.

Then it rained and rained and rained.

Despite intense repairs, it seemed impossible the pole could withstand the weight of the resting chair on which Blondin would sit and he arrived at the six acre field amid fears his performance would have to be cancelled.

But the great performer found the remedy, resolving that one end of the rope should be fastened to a high elm on the north-eastern side of the showground at a reduced height of 35ft with a strong guy-rope at its rear and the other end to double masts which would be maintained in position with a supporting rope round the base of a huge oak tree.

Unaware of the drama, the crowd poured into the enclosure to be entertained by the band of the Coldstream Guards who opened with ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ to tumultuous applause. Two comedians, Billion and Fuller, highly popular in the town’s music halls, provided the support act while final preparations were made completed.

Then, it was on with the show.

The crowd was spellbound as Blondin began his act

- Running along the rope.

- Walking along it blindfolded in a sack.

- Lying down on it as if asleep.

- Standing on it on one leg.

- Turning somersaults over his balancing pole which he tied and untied on the centre of the rope.

- Wheeling a barrow along it.

It climaxed with Blondin carrying his engineer on his back across the rope which caused it to visibly strain.

The only part of his repertoire which he omitted was sitting down on the rope to cook and eat an omelette!.

However his act did not met with universal acclaim.

The local press reported: that “The grace and ease Blondin executed his performance elicited occasional plaudits but there was an absence of intense excitement. There was disappointment in regard to height, the expected effect of the scene was lost to the majority of the multitude. It was however something to have seen the man who had walked on stilts and carried his manager over the Falls of Niagara. That is Blondin’s everlasting and genuine advertisement.

“Recollecting that great event, it is sufficient to have seen him on any rope in England, high or low. Upon the whole, the majority of the spectators on Monday, we dare say, were well satisfied, knowing as they did that Blondin was before them, not under his usual happy auspices but complelled, as it were, to perform on a rope put up to suit remarkably untoward circumstances.’"

The audience however had been fortunate to have witnessed Blondin at all because two days earlier he had narrowly escaped a serious accident at the Crystal Palace. Within moments of starting his act 160ft above the floor, his 60lb pole snapped. He fell but grasped the rope with his thighs remaining remarkably calm while his assistants sought assistance.

He gradually raised the broken pieces that had been bent double and with the ill-balanced pole, he stood up and walked the remainder of the rope. There he remained until a second and smaller one was found, and despite the unnerving experience, proceeded to walk back blindfolded!.

However later on his tour, a tragedy arose.

In Dublin, a rope broke as he was performing 50ft off the ground which led to the scaffolding collapsing. He was not injured but two workers fell to their death. Blondin and his manager were exonerated at the inquiry, with the judge blaming the rope manufacturer.

His last performance was in Belfast in 1896. He died the following year, aged 71, at his home in London.