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Silence is Golden

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:27:41 -0400

My London magic club visits were limited to my visits and the particular days in which I happened to be there.

I believe I attended three or four meetings of the Magicians Club. One, in particular, was a great session with G. W. Hunter. He was quite impressed with my version of the Four Burglars – the ancient card trick where the four jacks are distributed throughout the deck (as burglars visiting various floors of the hotel) and finally emerging as a group when the police arrive.

I later explained the routine in “My Best”.

My Magic Circle visit at that time was on one occasion only. Harry Leat’s son, Harry Jr., took me along as his guest. It was a real treat for me to meet Wilfrid Jonson, Will Blyth, Douglas Craggs, Victor Peacock, and others whose names have slipped my memory.

The Circle members were much more forward and I recall being at the hotel bar and showing Victor Peacock how to untie a knot in a hair. I had read about a hair expert doing this and, at the time no one else seemed to have heard of it.

A hair is removed from the head, a knot is tied and pulled as it can be felt easier than seen. The problem is to untie this minute knot.

It is accomplished by placing the hair on a moistened area of your palm so it rests in the crease formed when the hand is partially closed, then banging the other hand against the little finger end of the hand holding the hair. This actually loosens the knot so that, aided by a pencil, it can be untied.

Well I often think back to that occasion when the many austere Circle members, at least eight or ten, were standing at the bar banging their fists together in an effort to untie a knotted hair.

It always brings the picture to mind of a group of men behaving in this crazy fashion – and an onlooker saying, “Who are they” and a solemn character replying, “Oh, they’re members of the Magic Circle.”

An aftermath of that meeting came in a letter from Wilfrid Jonson who said he enjoyed watching me perform (I did a rope trick, jumbo card and a knot routine). He was extremely upset that his hearing aid battery had run down and he couldn’t hear my comments that created so much laughter.

That meeting started correspondence for many years with Wilfrid right up to his death when he had retired and resided in the Channel Islands.

Red Snapper Hunt

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:16:57 -0400

The other person I met was the popular close up worker, G. W. Hunter – known among magicians as the ‘Al Baker of England’.

He always had surprise items to show me during our many meetings - a card trick – something with a matchbox or the pen and pencil trick that became a favourite.

It is the one trick I brought back from England and have lived to see the basis become a standard item in a box of tricks. Today there are thousand of the adaptations known as the Red Snapper – the Wonder Plug that seems to have elastic at one end – but doesn’t.

Let me tell you the original G.W. Hunter trick (I resurrected it at a Collectors meet in Chicago).

It starts with a metal tube and a pencil that has a metal cap at one end. The other end usually had a pen nib – a sort of pen & pencil set.

The short pencil is withdrawn from the tube but it flies back again as if on a spring or elastic. This is demonstrated several times. It is replaced in the pocket but someone always wants to see it again so it is withdrawn and the effect is repeated a few times.

But it ends when it is explained that one must always remember to just withdraw the pencil about two inches (the pencil was previously seen to be three inches in length – to fit in the tube.)

However, if you withdraw beyond that point the pencil will never fly back. In fact, it never fit. At this point you slowly withdraw the pencil and it is seen to be a full-length pencil.

As you may have guessed, you have a full-length pencil in another tube in your pocket. This is the one you bring forth, the hand hiding the pencil end that protrudes from the tube.

Leslie Guest and John Booth were the first U.S. magicians who saw me present it and both mentioned it in their columns at that time.

But a year later, Horace Goldin returned to the States and was showing the trick around New York and soon after, the novelty shops had the wooden snapper and it has multiplied continuously since that time.

Hooking Davenport

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 17:17:45 -0400

I will never forget that evening. It was special not for my sudden elevation as a “famous” magician but it is where I met Mr. Goldston’s bright boy of the future, “Ned Williams”, who was, in later years, to become Robert Harbin.

Ned and I were about the same age (23) and we had many similar magic interests. On that particular night he demonstrated an effect with two tumblers of ink. It was rather messy and not too magical on that occasion, but it later became his very effective routine with two glasses of milk.
Ned Williams (aka Robert Harbin)
Ned Williams was working at Gamages department store in charge of the magic counter – the area where Will Goldston had once worked. Ned and I became very good friends – whenever I was in London we lunched together. We met in Davenports on Oxford Street Saturday afternoons before attending the matinee at St. Georges Hall.

George “Gillie” Davenport was a great demonstrator and the butt of many practical jokes perpetrated by Ned and his friend Stanley Hunt. Someone would come in the store and Ned would describe a wonderful Davenport trick where coins vanished from a tin cup without a cover.

It was accomplished with an insert that had a hook. In passing the area around the cup to prove there was no connection, the hook was caught in the coat sleeve and the insert and coins secretly stolen – so a moment later the small can is shown empty.

In Davenports, in those days, many of the tricks were in a small open container on the counter. Ned picked up the metal can and secretly slipped the holder within, as he handed it to George to demonstrate. George went through all the proper moves but the coins refused to vanish.

Ned had, craftily, removed the bottom from the hooked insert so George still had the coins in the can and a bottomless insert hooked to his sleeve.

These were wonderful days of fun, meeting folk like Alex Gordon, Bruce Hurling, Stanley Hunt, Douglas Craggs, George Johnson (the Magic Wand) Edward Bagshawe, Walter Kemp, Archie Byford, as well as the many daily sessions with Ned Williams, whenever I was in London.

An Honour

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:50:48 -0400

The meeting turned out exactly how Harry Leat had predicted. I was introduced as a famous American magician whom he had met earlier in the week when I had made Goldston’s my first magic contact after my arrival.

He explained – somewhat elaborately, how I had walked in the store and within a few moments had amazed him with some astonishing effects, one of them with a borrowed pack of cigarettes and he suggested that I might be persuaded to demonstrate it to the members.

He had, fortunately, made a point of asking me to be sure to bring the cigarette trick along.

Following my presentation, I was made an honorary member. He pinned the club medallion on my lapel and I was welcomed into the club.

I still have that medallion – that was over eighty years ago. The club ceased in the thirties, I believe, and I doubt whether there are many of those club medallions around today.