The Stratosphere Girl - Camilla Mayer - was one of the most remarkable and popular acts ever to appear in Clacton.

She appeared in the old Butlin’s Pleasure Park from 1937 until war broke out in 1939.

Her real name was Lotte Witte. She was born in 1918 in Stettin, Germany (today Szczecin, in Poland), the daughter of a plumber. An artistically minded and very attractive young girl, she was 16 when she joined Camilio Mayer’s high-wire circus troupe in 1934.

Fearless and talented, she soon became the troupe’s star attraction, and Lotte became known as Camilla Mayer.

Her act consisted of performing extraordinary stunts perched on a two-inch wide platform on top of a steel pole anything up to 175-feet high, which she did in the popular seaside resort of Atlantic City, in the United States in 1936.

Lotte made the headlines with this act as her daring feat was heralded as a world record at the time.

On this platform she would stand on her head, hands or one toe. She brought her act to its climax by sliding along a rope from the pole to the centre of the park holding on by just her teeth.

She would then challenge all the boys in the audience to do what she had done. None ever did.

In 1937, at Butlin’s, her trainer discovered on two occasions just before her performance that the wire ropes supporting her mast had been cut.

It was thought this attempted sabotage was due to her being German and the following year an anonymous letter threatening her was said to have been received by the Butlin’s manager.

A special corps of men were ordered to guard her mast and its supports against sabotage attempts.

Sadly, Camilla lost her life on January 20, 1940, when her sway pole broke during a performance at the Deutschlande Halle in Berlin.

The crowded audience were watching her acrobatic feats, performed at the top of a 60ft steel tubular mast, when the mast snapped without warning.

Miss Mayer fell into the arena striking a wooden balustrade, before dying in hospital.

By the time of her death, the name of Camilla Mayer had become part of circus lore and legend, but for us in Clacton, the Stratosphere Girl will forever be associated with Butlin’s.