Family History

My great grandfather, a farmer of German origin, once visited a funfair-variety performance, where he came across a magician; the work of this man enchanted him so much that he left the farming life to join the funfair-variety world and became a magician.

His name was Johan Bolten . He was the first generation to use the artistic name ‘Boltini', changing it from Bolten as it did not sound commercial enough!

He fell in love with the daughter of the funfair's owner, who carried the surname Akkerman, but as my great grandparents never married, all the descendants officially carried the name Akkerman.

My grandfather was born in 1892, in the dressing room of the building for the Arts and Science in the city of The Hague, setting forth the next generation of funfair-variety performers.

He too was called Johan Akkerman and performed for many years as strongman and wrestling champion in the funfair shows. He would lift up to seven people at once, doing about 16 performances a day on busy fair days.

In Enschede, near the German/Dutch border, he met my grandmother , who was surnamed Borgert (a distinguished young girl of the respectable classes!). She wasn't from a traveller's family, and they were never allowed to marry; as a result, the children continued to be called Akkerman.

He created his own travelling variety-theatre in the late 1930s. There were acrobats, magicians, clowns, bicycle stunt acts, musicians, human freaks and curiosities, typical of the period. The troupe was called Cristal Pallas. The Second World War was to change the future of the family from a variety-theatre to circus affair. Before the Germans occupied The Netherlands, my grandfather, who by now was becoming heavily alcoholic, forced my uncles to join the NBS - later called Dutch ‘SS' (which became part of the German ‘SS'): they had little to say about the matter, so they did!

By the time our country was invaded by the Nazis, my family realised the brutality of the Nazi system, so they abandoned the party, for which the whole family was put into concentration camps. They were forced to perform for the higher ranks of the military during the war years moving with the ramshackle trucks and caravans in which they lived from one camp to the next (these were the “Dutch transition” camps from which Dutch Jews, Gypsies and other minority groups where sent on to the Polish death camps). As they travelled, they hid numerous Gypsies in their transports to help them avoid the camps by presenting them as Hungarian musicians who accompanied the family-run shows.

By 1944/45, after the British planes had bombed the Dutch city of Arnhem (then under Nazi rule), thousands of people were left wounded in the streets; my uncles used their variety transports and their old SS uniforms to pass through Nazi lines to help in the evacuation of hundreds of Dutch citizens back into liberated parts of Holland. These efforts made our family (especially my uncle Toni, who was the grandmother's favourite) famous in The Netherlands . His long-cherished desire to buy a big top instead of the variety tent became reality thanks to his newly found fame (however, in later years he was not awarded the Honours for Liberations Cross from the Dutch government, due to the fact that he had been an SS soldier, despite having used his uniform to liberate and aid Dutch citizens).

After the war ended, the 4 sons and 3 daughters of Akkerman run into conflict, as Toni had taken the business leadership without the others' approval. Circus Toni Boltini was born.

My uncles and aunts' roles were:

Willy Akkerman (Boltini) was a musician, xylophonist and, later in life, an insurance man.
Toni Akkerman became the director of Circus Toni Boltini . He had two daughters: Antoinette, who used to ride highschool horses, sat on elephants, and presented liberty horses, and Josette, who was a foot-juggler, presented dogs act and farm animal acts, as well as being ring mistress for several years at her father's show. My uncle later had a second wife - Pammy - with whom he had a son Angelo, who is now a very good musician.
Johnny Akkerman (Boltini) was the clown (no children).
Jan was first a clown and then the technical man (his children: Jonekke , Thea, Jan & Margreta).
My mother, Mimi Akkerman, got married (first) to

John Martens , a SS informer with whom she had her first son, Hans Martens.
Johan Lijfering , her second husband, a horse and dog's trainer, which allowed the family to incorporate animal acts into the family business; 4 children came from this marriage (Mariska Akkerman, Sita Lijfering, Job Lijfering and Christina Lijfering).
Marcel Desprats ; was MY DAD, from the Kervitch circus family, who was the Human Canon Ball; they too never married, so I carry my mother's surname.

Trudi Akkerman (later Hendriks) got married to a non-circus man; her daughters became bicycle artists and tight wirewalkers; one of them got married to the clowns family Romanus , and still perform as a clown to this day ( 5 children : Maria, Josee, Conny, Peter and Daniela)
Kitty Akkerman (later Althoff) got married to a German bear, elephant and lion trainer, Bubby Althoff, from whom the wild animals came into the family business. Her sons became animal trainers of all kinds, from horses and elephants to football-dogs, hippos, rhinos and giraffes (4 children: Alberto Medi, Marco and Patricia - only the men stayed in the business).

By the 1950s the family was falling apart; my uncle, Willy, Johnny and my mother opened their own little show called Circus Tosca and Circus Espagnol , but unfortunately these businesses didn't last long.

During the 1960s and 1970s Circus Toni Boltini was the most famous circus in the Netherlands and Belgium, run completely by my uncle. He introduced Rock acts to his shows: a well-known Dutch rock star - Johnny Lion and the Jumping Jewels ; he also invented the Hydraulic Mast which enabled the setting up of the big top up in a faster manner as the show was changing towns on a daily basis.

My parents made their way into international shows, at which primarily my oldest sister Mariska was the performer with her foot-juggling act. In this way they toured with the last European tour of Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey circus , and they made their way into Spain, in which foreign artists (and especially a young beautiful blond woman) could earn a good living. My aunt, Trudi , later followed this move to Spain with her husband and children known as the Hendriks family.

My aunt Kitty stayed with the family and her sons Alberto Althoff and Marco Althoff became internationally-acclaimed animal trainers and run their own circuses around Eastern-Europe, South America, Germany, Belgium and Holland. Alberto has now his own circus in The Netherlands.

My brothers and sisters followed the circus world in very different ways:

My eldest brother, Hans Martens , born in 1945, first became a flying trapeze catcher and had his own troupe; he is now the director of The Netherlands Moscow State Circus
Then my sister Mariska Akkerman, as explained before, travelled Europe as a foot-juggler until recently. She has performed in a large variety of shows from cabarets in Spain and Italy, to Theatres like Draum Theatre Salome, Circo Atlas, several television shows, galas in Germany, with the Harlem Globetrotters, and so on. She has a son with the late Umberto Manetti , a great star of Italian/British circus. She now runs the circus bar at my older brothers' show and is married to the ex-rock star Johnny Lion !
My sister, Sita Lijfering , was never really involved as an artist, but runs the show's catering staff.
My other brother, Job Lijfering , became well known as a tiger tamer, he quit doing this job in 2007, he now does the publicity for the show of my Brother Hans' show.
My sister Christina got married to an Italian circus director from a family show which was re-invented by Antonio Giarola (famous Italian regisseur) - the family Cavedo , where she became a comedy plate-juggler. The highlight of my sister's career was touring for 4 years with the German circus Barum. She has now left the business and is creating a B & B in Granada. www.la-yesera.com /
And… born 10 years later in 1964, Jean-Marie Akkerman (also known and originally named Eli),

I was born in a caravan when my parents were with a travelling circus in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. When I was 5, my parents bought a house in Madrid for me to have a decent education. At the age of 15, I was taken to my brother's circus, so as to make a man out of me!

There I started at the bottom, helping put up the big top, being a ring boy and performing with crocodiles and snakes .

I moved on to do a cradle act aged 17 – ‘The Elison's' - with Alison Russell previously known from the English Supernova Space Rocket act.

I moved up the ranks becoming regisseur and artistic director at my brother's show over the years, whilst also doing several other acts like working with the Hippopotamus Guddle or the aerial act " The New Elison's ", with my niece Natacha and Stephan Agnesen, now a circus director in Belgium. Natacha still works for my brother Hans and her daughter Jennifer Lijfering is the 6 th generation of Boltini that has joined the circus tradition, she performs with a hula hoop act.

I left the family business to learn to stand on my own two feet in 1990 when I joined the Paris Circus school of Annie Fratellini , who became my mentor and who granted me the privilege to be the only company allowed to start my own show (Cirque Nova 1994) under her circus school big top in Paris. Here I was taught by Victor Fomin, now teacher for Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, to do a solo corde lisse act, with which I toured in fantastic shows all over the world.

My first tour with my own company ( Cirque Nova 1994 ) was in South America, with a group of disadvantaged youths and a few of my artists travelling through Brazil, Paraguay and Chile, which became my first social circus job combining the educational programme for youths with HIV/Aids awareness in those countries.

I have been regisseur for the Verona Circus Festival of Antonio Giarola, The Riva del Garda Circus Festival and the Circa Festival in Auch France, under contract for the Rosny sous Bois circus school in France: this festival show-cased the work to all the circus schools of France.

In 1997 love brought me to London where I decided to start up my company again, continuing to promote HIV awareness through circus, whilst beginning to work with disabled artists and other social minorities. And the adventure continues...