A girl worked with the small ponies. They looked scruffy and needed a good groom. They were made to walk round the edge of the ring on their hind legs which I did not like.

A man worked the horses, which all looked very thin. All the horses had marks on their backs (rump) which I felt could have been whip marks. One horse in particular, a golden horse, was very thin and had a white mark on its belly which was clearly visible when it was standing on its back legs.

The horses were made to bow and run round in circles. Then they were made to stand on their hind legs and walk round in a circle and backwards and forwards for several minutes. I did not like this at all.

Small dogs had to jump on stools and then on to the horses’ backs. This was awful. The horses had extremely tight straps under their tails and their bits were rigid and looked painful for the horses.

At one point it appeared that the horses were not doing as they were told and they tried to run out of the ring.

I found these animal acts really awful and had I known they were part of the performance I doubt if I would have gone to the circus.

After the performance I paid £1.50 to see the animals. I got my camera out to take a photo of the ponies and was told rudely and abruptly that no photos were allowed. I couldn’t understand why not.

I was allowed to stroke the small ponies and felt so sorry for them with their scruffy coats. I would have loved to have given them a proper groom!

The camel was chained in its small pen. Its coat was very matted. I was warned to stay back from it and wondered if it had been badly treated so was wary of any people and dangerous because it was scared.

As this is a small circus I wondered if there was not enough money spent on feed and so the animals were not getting what they needed, or were they starved in order to train them?

I was upset at the state of the elephant. She was in a roped area at one end of the tent and was standing as far back as possible. She was chained and not moving at all. She was droopy-eyed and didn’t look at all happy. She did have plenty of hay on the wooden platform but she wasn’t touching it.

It was freezing cold and none of the animals could move around to get warm. Everything in the tent and the animal acts disturbed me a lot. I am very glad I did not take my older children as they would have been very upset.

Incidentally, the toilet facilities were really awful. They were dirty, smelly and falling apart. The door did not shut properly and the steps to the cubicles were broken and dangerous. The circus seemed to care very little about its customers’ safety. The evening left me feeling very disturbed.