Firstly – I’ve been persuaded to record many memories and sometimes hitherto unknown facts and magic ideas about many of my colleagues of earlier days. Friends like Alex Elmsley, Jack Avis, John Ramsay, Cy Enfield, Al Koran, Hugh Scott and many others with whom I mixed over fifty years ago. In relating these tales it was pointed out that when I’m gone much of this intruiging information will be lost forever. Consequently I’m writing a series of 2,500 word essays  called “Yesterday” about these magicians many of whom fashioned some of the magic we treasure today. These will be available as a pdf downloaded from your computer, with the added bonus of a magic effect or item from the subject of the essay. The first of these will be Alex Elmsley and watch this site for details. If you love the romance of magic and magicians of the past, you’ll love this new series – “Yesterday”

Did you know for example Alex Elmsley’s nick name? Did any one ever tell you that Jack Avis, a most polite and modest man publicly stormed out of a convention in a rage? Did you know that Cy Endfield, a most creative man in all directions once made a chess set that fitted inside a magic wand? And off stage Al Koran stuttered very badly, struggling with words and screwing up his eyes as he tried to speak – there was a reason for this.These and many other interesting stories, magic ideas and tips will be the subject of this new series on this site, to be announced shortly.

And secondly – and I’m really excited about this. I’m shortly putting out an effect I’ve used that truthfully is a blinder. Not for the method necessarily (although it’s quite ingenious) but for the effect on an audience, particularly at a wedding reception. It’s called “Welded Bliss”. In one hand you show a ladies diamond wedding ring. In the other a gentleman’s gold signet ring. You speak about your own personal and successful marriage happiness and openly drop the two rings into a wine glass. Nothing in the hands. Continuing the dialogue you tip the rings into a spectator’s hands – and the two rings are seen to be permanently linked together. And everything can be examined. I’ve done this at weddings and cocktail receptions, sometimes dropping the rings into a half empty flute of champagne, drunk the champagne and then tipped out the joined rings. The audience impact has been amazing.

I’m just working out final details as to how I am going to distribute this but check this site for future announcement. That’s all for rhe moment. Play your cards right!

At Eastbourne, Nick Einhorn confirmed to me and a thousand other visitors just how good he is in his stunning lecture created especially for the convention  -“Very practical stuff you will probably want to do!”  Packed with gems of practical, diverse magic that are currently in his professional repertoire. Some brilliant twists on the historical Coin in Bottle including the production and  vanish of the bottle. An excellent development on Steve Duscheck’s “Lethal Tender”using a small purse with the gizmo instead of the usual playing card. A impromptu book test that’s so simple and ever-ready that Annemann would have been proud to have claimed its origin.

Again an ever -ready mental effect in which two watches apparently match without any input from the magician. Spooky! A really excellent card effect based on “Triumph” combined with a prediction in a wallet in which the signed card appears on the reverse side of the previously shown prediction! Outstanding and worthy of some of the best card men in magic. Finally an ESP stage routine that is dynamic, baffling and simple that adapted for a trade show could be dynamite.

Six baffling, simple, diverse items of magic proven in performance by one of the best brains in the business. All these were beautifully presented in the lecture notes in book form with excellent descriptions, photographs and graphics and included in the low price is a specially made gimmick that is used in the Coin in Bottle routine. At £10.00 it’s a steal!  Unreservedly recommended. 

Jack Avis would show him a trick and he’d go away , worry the life out of the idea and turn up the following week with a whole raft of variations. He was always experimenting. Trying this, trying that and he came up with some outstanding ideas. The Miracle Card Stab with a borrowed deck, a borrowed penknife and a banknote, a baffling secret he kept to himself a long time before he released it. The Hanky Panky routine, stringing together a whole batch of coin and handkerchief effects.

The locked box, in which a word was written in chalk on the bottom of a mahogany box which was locked, placed on a slate and covered with a cloth. Not only did he reveal the name but he vanished the large mahogany box at the conclusion of the trick (Recognise the old vanishing bowl of water effect!) That was cute but that’s what he was good at – taking tricks and giving them an original twist.

He floored us when he he first showed Ring Flite in which a borrowed ring vanished only to be found hanging inside his key case. In those days he experimented with many very powerful reels ripping many of his shirts to pieces in the process before he got it right. He came up with a second version of Ring Flite in which the borrowed ring finished up mounted in a velvet cushion inside an engagement ring presentation box.

He was very excitable in his conversation and enthusiasm for magic and stuttered very badly, something he never did when performing on stage. It was said that this affliction was the result of injuries sustained in the war during his time as a paratrooper in the battle of Arnhem.

In his quest for magic success he tried everything. There is a picture of him wearing a fez, a slick moustache and a glove puppet monkey picking a card from a fan. Another time he created an act called “Song and Sorcery” in which he sang and did magic at the same time. I remember a miser’s dream routine with him singing “Zip-a-de-do-dah” producing silver coins all the time. When he came to the line “There’s a bluebird on my shoulder” he produced a bird at his finger tips. He was always striving to find more and better magic. He rang the bell when he developed a mental act, adopted the name Al Koran ( would there be a fatwah out on him if he was alive today?) and began to secure regular bookings with agents. The act developed, improving all the time and he got appearances on television enough to give up the daily grind of cutting patrons hair at The Ritz.

He then had a regular series on television and national fame with a mental act that was not only skillful but totally audacious. He achieved impact by living on the edge and taking chances. Witness the courageous working and carefully stage managed routine with the Gold Medallion in which a prediction is ostensibly engraved on a gold medal. Audacity was his friend and he used it mercilessly in his act.

With national success and fame in Britain he sought an international and wider audience and moved with his wife Kath to the USA staying I believe with his brother in law in Chicago. He made an impact with U.S. magicians and secured bookings but never I was told with the same success that he had enjoyed in Britain. And then in is fifties he succumbed to cancer and died, cutting short what could have been a glittering career in the new world.

The last person to see him alive was Billy McComb. Remembering that Al had always harboured an ambition, never fulfilled, to play the London Palladium, Billy, one of magic’s true gentlemen secured some of Al’s ashes after his cremation, brought them back to England and scattered them on the stage of the Palladium In our magic village there have been many such generous acts of kindness; after Al’s death his widow was left with a massive bill for his medical treatment whilst in hospital and it was Ken Brooke who organised a collection from magicians all over Britain who generously cleared the outstanding debt.

I am warmed when I recall over the last sixty years many similar acts of kindness, often unannounced, by fellow magicians who prove the true fellowship we have in our art.

They were Bobby Bernard, Ted Danson, Roy Walton, Jack Avis, Alex Elmsley and myself.

The proprietor George Davenport was a kindly man who tolerated our using his premises as a clubroom, knowing that many of us had few pennies to spend which we did from time to time on the latest trick or book. But he was always most generous in advising us of items that were not suitable for our emerging skills. He encouraged us in our regular visits knowing that we would one day emerge from our chrysalis and become regular magicians and repay his kindness with future patronage.

His kindness went beyond the doors of that Oxford Street magic shop. At the IBM convention banquets he always used to send over a bottle of wine to Jack Avis and myself and at Christmas gave us magically meaningful presents like a large bath-towel covered in playing cards. George was one of magic’s real gentlemen and we’ll never forget him.

At lunchtime we would repair to a nearby Greek cafe sited ironically in Vernon Place. Here we would spend hours over a plate of spaghetti Bolognese and a cup of coffee interspersed with card moves, the latest from the U.S. and discussion on a recent performance of a name magician. In the mid-afternoon we were often joined by Al Koran, film director and magician Cy Endfield and a largely unknown but excellent card worker Hugh Scott. His visits were infrequent being fitted in between his duties as a royal bodyguard Scotland Yard detective.

Later onto Soho where we would often have a brief visit to Harry Stanley’s studio followed by tea and strawberry shortcake in an Austrian cafe welcomed by the amply bodied Haus Frau Madame Maurier. Then the evening was usually filled by an underground trip to one of the circuit of variety theatres around central London to see a magician appearing on the bill. I remember them all. Benson Du Lay, Douglas Francis, Francis Watts, Shek Ben Ali, Kardomah, Lionel King, Howard de Courcy, Robert Harbin, Donald B. Stuart, Pat Hatton & Peggy, Deveen and his New York Blondes, Cingalee, Reg Salmon, the list is endless. None of them top of the bill but always good, entertaining acts that worked week after week all over Britain. These were halcyon days indeed.

Is it any wonder that my magic is so influenced by my years of seeing stage magicians who only got regular bookings because they were entertaining? Sorry for the drift into nostalgia but I am delighted to know that there are still many magicians today who also have a regular get together with colleagues where I believe some of the best magic is originated. The tradition continues.

 Many of our finest magicians have presented this effect over the years with great success. Max Malinimade a feature of the effect performing in the drawing rooms of the great and the  good, spreading the cards on the host’s antique table and stabbing the correct card with a dagger whilst blindfolded. Ignoring any concern for a fine piece of furniture, Malini, always the hustler, boasted that his client would proudly display the damaged surface saying “The great Malini did that”  Well, that was Malini’s version!

Al Koran had a fabulous card stab years ago with a borrowed pack and was offered large amount of money by rich magicians before he generously published it in his book “Mastered Amazement“ which he co-authored with Jack Lamonte.

He’d borrow a pack of cards, have a card selected, returned to the pack that was cut several times and then wrap a banknote around the edge of the deck. With a borrowed pen knife he would then stab through the banknote into the pack, open up the deck and show that the knife was next to the selected card. He lived off that trick for a long time and it was quite sensational and helped establish his reputation.

Another excellent card stab was created by master craftsman and magician Bob Swadling who I believe designed this version for his daughter Crystal who was a professional magician. Again a card was selected and replaced in the pack which was wrapped completely in tissue paper and string. A dagger was plunged into the side of the packet which suddenly burst into flames, the cards now released dropped into a champagne bucket and the selected card was seen impaled on the dagger blade. It was a real show biz style presentation which was excellent  for cabaret and stage performance and was a highlight of Crystal’s act for some time.

Bob made a few of these and marketed them through his company Swadling Magic, which was excellent in concept and construction and featured in the act of many of our working professionals.

If you want a surefire, one-off,  no problems, ideal for television presentation version of the card stab you could not do better than to use a Svengali Deck. Card is selected, place back in the pack, cut many times and  a knife plunged through the side of the deck by the spectator.  Bingo. Right on the card.

Lastly , years ago Harry Stanley used to hold magic luncheons in a Chinese restaurant called Ley-Ons, situated near his studio in Wardour Street  where in town magicians used to meet, eat, and do magic including many overseas magicians from time to time.

One such visitor from the USA was a magician called Arnold Furst and he did an apparently impromptu card stab at the dinner table. He had a card selected, shuffled the deck, balanced the cards on a table knife, tossed the deck into the air and plunged the knife into the snowstorm of cards to produce the selected card impaled on the knife. It was very good. I’ll tip the gaff later on if you’re interested.

I’ll be setting up a password shortly for magicians so that detailed explanations of effects shown on this blog can be revealed to bona fide readers as I am aware that we are getting quite a few hits from lay people in other countries and the whole purpose of this feature was news and tricks for magicians.Watch this space.

Finally there is an excellent presentation of the Card Stab by Roberto Giobbi of Card College fame. All in all it’s one of our classics of card magic.