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Nell Gifford was born Eleanor Rose Stroud on January 24, 1974 in Oxford. Her father, Rick Stroud, was a successful television director and producer, and her mother, Charlotte, née Pumphrey and known as Char, was also artistically inclined. Char had three children from her first marriage with publisher Matthew Bridgewater, among whom Emma Bridgewater, the founder of the eponymous British pottery and ceramics manufacturing company. Nell also had a younger sister, Clover Stroud (b.1975), who became a successful writer. When Nell was ten, the family moved from Oxford to a farm in a village called Minety, in Wiltshire. In the English countryside, horse riding is an integral part of life and Nell became indeed a horse enthusiast.
 
Nell Gifford was born Eleanor Rose Stroud on January 24, 1974 in Oxford. Her father, Rick Stroud, was a successful television director and producer, and her mother, Charlotte, née Pumphrey and known as Char, was also artistically inclined. Char had three children from her first marriage with publisher Matthew Bridgewater, among whom Emma Bridgewater, the founder of the eponymous British pottery and ceramics manufacturing company. Nell also had a younger sister, Clover Stroud (b.1975), who became a successful writer. When Nell was ten, the family moved from Oxford to a farm in a village called Minety, in Wiltshire. In the English countryside, horse riding is an integral part of life and Nell became indeed a horse enthusiast.
  
Yet, it is a catastrophic riding accident that brought tragedy into the Stroud and Bridgewater families. In 1991, Char fell from her horse while hunting and suffered a head injury that left her in a coma for two weeks and kept her mentally incapacitated for the following twenty-two years (she passed away in 2013). At the time of the accident, Nell and Clover were eighteen and sixteen respectively and, in effect, they had suddenly lost the brilliant person they had known as their mother. Their lives changed forever.
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Yet, it is a catastrophic riding accident that brought tragedy into the Stroud and Bridgewater families. In 1991, Char fell from her horse while hunting and suffered a head injury that left her in a coma for two weeks and kept her mentally incapacitated for the following twenty-two years (she passed away in 2013). At the time of the accident, Nell and Clover were eighteen and sixteen respectively and, in effect, they had suddenly lost the brilliant person they had known as their mother. Their lives changed forever..... ([[Nell Gifford|more...]])
 
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By then, Nell had secured a place to study English literature at Oxford’s New College. She took a short break to go to the United States at the invitation of Gerald Balding, a relative by marriage of one of her stepbrothers and, most importantly, a nephew of Ivor David Balding, who had co-founded Circus Flora in 1985—a very successful theatrical, yet traditional circus based in St. Louis, Missouri. Nell went to help at the circus during its short annual season, doing everything from tent set-up to ushering the public, and making herself useful in every possible way. This was an epiphany: Circus proved to be a place where she could find comfort at this difficult stage of her life. She also took an instant liking to circus life..... ([[Nell Gifford|more...]])
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Revision as of 21:58, 1 April 2020

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Circopedia was originally created with the support of the Big Apple Circus
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In The Spotlight

NELL GIFFORD

Nell Gifford and wagon.jpeg
The founder of England’s Giffords Circus, Nell Gifford (1974-2019) wrote: "A good circus is a sublimely existential thing, living acutely and only for the present moment." She also wrote: "A good circus should make you cry." She created a circus conform to these ideas, a circus with a soul, which understands its purpose. In time, Giffords Circus has generated an amazingly faithful and enthusiastic following in the countryside of the south of England—not a large territory, but Nell Gifford wanted hers to be a "village-green circus." And indeed, Giffords Circus has this unique quality: it takes its audience into a nostalgic world of quaint simplicity and tangible wonder.

Nell Gifford was born Eleanor Rose Stroud on January 24, 1974 in Oxford. Her father, Rick Stroud, was a successful television director and producer, and her mother, Charlotte, née Pumphrey and known as Char, was also artistically inclined. Char had three children from her first marriage with publisher Matthew Bridgewater, among whom Emma Bridgewater, the founder of the eponymous British pottery and ceramics manufacturing company. Nell also had a younger sister, Clover Stroud (b.1975), who became a successful writer. When Nell was ten, the family moved from Oxford to a farm in a village called Minety, in Wiltshire. In the English countryside, horse riding is an integral part of life and Nell became indeed a horse enthusiast.

Yet, it is a catastrophic riding accident that brought tragedy into the Stroud and Bridgewater families. In 1991, Char fell from her horse while hunting and suffered a head injury that left her in a coma for two weeks and kept her mentally incapacitated for the following twenty-two years (she passed away in 2013). At the time of the accident, Nell and Clover were eighteen and sixteen respectively and, in effect, they had suddenly lost the brilliant person they had known as their mother. Their lives changed forever..... (more...)

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