HAD A DELIGHTFUL LUNCH WITH ROY WALTON  and his wife Jean  this week (started at 1.00pm and finished at 5.00pm!)  during their brief visit to the big smoke. We have been friends since we were teenagers but after marrying Jean  of the famed Davenport family, he gave up a career in the computing industry and decided in just fourteen days to change direction and become  manager (now owner) of Tam Shepherd’s Magic Shop in Glasgow.

He has now lived there for the past forty something years, in a delightful Victorian House in Helensburgh just outside of Glasgow, bringing up his two daughters, Sarah and Julia who now work in that famous little magic shop on Queen Street. He has also been the fountainhead of inspiration of some of Scotland’s finest card magicians – Peter Duffie, Gordon Bruce, Jerry Sadowitz and many others.

 It was an excellent meeting that revealed our joint  realisation and gratitude at what we have both witnessed and been part of for the last half century. In terms of card work he reveres natural card handling, the philosophy of his idols Johnny Ramsay and Dai Vernon and he is dismissive of what he terms “card juggling”

He believes that a card should be simply selected, placed back in the pack, handed to the spectator to shuffle and then returned, the magician having the selection totally under is control throughout the whole procedure. Roy does exactly that and it is sheer poetry to see his work and style that has sixty years of study, research and practice behind it. The world acknowledges Roy Walton as one of the greats of close-quarter work and I am honoured to have been his friend.

It was a wonderful afternoon of reverie and nostalgia recalling the time we were all part of a group of six young magicians of which sadly three have passed on. Jean too, looking the image of her father George “Gilly” Davenport has many memories of magic having been brought up in one of the leading magic families of the land although her chosen career was in nursing.

Both now retired, both looking well although Roy now has impaired hearing but  still enjoying their business, their family and keeping connections with the magic world.

Roy is now sought as a world figure, author and skilled card  technician notably for his effect “Card Warp” which has put food on the table of magicians the world over. Not a vindictive man but he is saddened at the way that the effect is now sold shamelessly all over the world with little or no credit as to it origin. He shrugs his shoulders and says it’s the way the world is today. Roy told me that at one time a magician came into the shop with some tricks to sell. When he opened his case it was full of “Cascade” – a trick that was originated by Roy years ago! Another who feels the same is Angelo Carbone whose effect “Out of Order” is on sale at dealers all over the world with no acknowledgement or permission from the originator. Angelo at FISM in Stockholm complained to the organisers at the effect being offered for sale in the dealer’s hall. The organisers then asked him to prove he was the originator of the effect! A man who is very adept with computers he pulled up a mass of documentation  proving his claim which only resulted in the effect being removed from the stands despite the trading rules stating that anyone selling unofficial magic items would be ejected from the convention.

Despite all this Roy is still upbeat about magic, doesn’t worry too much about exposure, has a strong belief in the genesis of magic and the work of the early masters – Vernon, Marlo, Paul Le Paul, Leipzig, Malini and many others.

It was an afternoon I will long remember and I am very proud  to have enjoyed his friendship for over half a century.

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