But there is another long established magician /craftman whose pedigree goes way back to the days of Harry Stanley and Ken Brooke. Bob Swadling. With his lovely Oxfordshire accent and a brain and skilled hands that were trained at top level working in the aero/atomic industry that were turned to the craft of making outstanding magic props where quality and reliability were paramount. He was the man behind the scenes who made superb fake coins and other engineered items of magic for top professionals and the trade and on his retirement he created Swadling Magic, creators and manufacturers of original quality magic. I was reminded of all this at his excellent lecture at The Magic Circle earlier this week when once more I saw his amazing changing cards that literally change in mid air. (This is an outstanding item and he made me a special set some years ago whereby any card could be freely selected from a spread and shown to be the only card with a different coloured back. It’s quite brilliant)

But he showed a whole parade of brilliant thinking and craftsmanship, lovingly put together for those who value quality.From his Power Pack whereby a deck delivers timed coins into a tumbler, to his exquisitely made coin box, the stylish aluminium three shell game, torn and restored card that becomes whole in mid-are in a flash of fire and his visible coin through handkerchief where you actually see the coin  penetrate! Everything he makes looks terrific and works perfectly, the hallmark of Swadling magic. And look out for his shortly to be seen prize winning coin in the bottle whereby the coin is seen to penetrate in the side of the bottle!

And if you want to witness his ingenuity ask to see the Kristal Card Stab, designed by him for his daughter’s cabaret act where a dagger pushed through the side of a deck correctly stabs a selected card, seen on the blade as the deck drops away in a burst of flame. Great theatre and great magic. Bob and his wife Val (herself a magic competition prizewinner) are just off to to the U.S. for Christmas with their daughter but he’ll be at Blackpool so do yourself a favour and check out his outstandingly made magic. Or if you want a quick run down on his items, he produces  two DVD’s called “Magical Moments with Bob Swadling” – email:swadlingmagic@btinternet.com

The usual climax is the mass linking of all the rings and in the case of some performers like Roy Davenport, a chain link that goes right across the stage. With his training at stage school he has a wonderful presentation that involves juggling and rings linking whilst in mid-air that makes it quite outstanding. 

I  have done a three ring routine for years with (hopefully) funny patter and it climaxes with the three rings around my head. Occasionally I use a gag that I first saw performed by a cod magician, Arthur Dowler on the variety theatres in the 50’s. He was part of the original triumvirate of magicians that created the Unique Magic Company – Harry Stanley, Jack Hughes and Arthur Dowler. Eventually they went their own ways and Harry ran Unique Magic for many years with a studio in Soho.

Arthur’s finish to his Linking Ring routine  was to offer the rings for examination to the audience which he did by throwing them out to a spectator sat the end of the front stalls. After a moment the rings were thrown back to him but they were now twisted and mangled completely out of shape having been thoroughly examined! Ken Brooke also used this gag at times and if your magic has a comedy vein, it brings a logical climax and applause point to a classic effect.

But in my half century plus of magic there are not one but three magicians who impressed me the most -Dai Vernon, Fred Kaps and John Ramsay, particularly the latter. I saw Dai Vernon when I was in my twenties and whilst I was nowhere in that league I was impressed with the sheer breadth of his knowledge and ability and particularly with the fact that he was not just a specialist in one faction of magic technique. He was as adept at doing a bottom deal as he was in using a hook coin, a faked card or a pull to achieve the miracles that he presented. All credit to Harry Stanley who first brought him over to this country.

Then Fred Kaps. His perfection in thinking and handling was superb and whatever he turned to was the result of outstanding natural ability and technique at which he practised much more than most. To present the floating cork on television with Michael Parkinson, so casual, so natural and then hand the cork to Parkinson was masterly and made you believe in magic. And if you see his tapes note his facial expressions both on and off stage. He showed real surprise and enjoyment in what he was doing and that emotion was conveyed to the audience who joined in. He was magic.

And lastly Johnny Ramsay. I was privileged to see this Scottish grocer and amateur magician in many private sessions in our hotel bedroom at conventions along with other Ramsay fans Jack Avis, Roy Walton and Bobby Bernard.An event that was photographed and published by the national press. But it was Johnny’s naturalness, timing and misdirection that would beat you, long before such strategies blossomed in the USA. Vernon praised Ramsay as the finest close-up magician he had seen and many overseas magicians travelled to his little town on the West coast of Scotland just to witness first-hand his unique and very personal magic. I could write reams about Johnny Ramsay (and probably will) for he was well ahead of his time with outstanding magic that was disguised with his Scottish mannerisms and quaint ways. There are a few (very few) films of him working around today but if you want to get a very good idea of his magic and his way of working get hold of a tape of his magic performed by Scottish magician Andy Galloway (available from International Magic U.K.) who was a protege of Johnny and who was taught his methods and presentations for over a period of seven years. You’ll be fooled (as you always were with Ramsay) and its the nearest thing you’ll see to the original. Or if you fancy diving into the very special world of Johnny Ramsay and his routines, Galloway has published many of his original  effects in several books available from Andy Galloway and dealers.

You’ll probably gather from the above wordage that I am a great fan of Ramsay but I also would count as great close-up workers Vernon and Kaps. There aren’t so many around like that today. They had a very special charisma. They were something special that made them stand out in the crowd. More about Ramsay later and a few routines perhaps that I published based on his style.

 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.

I didn’t know Tommy intimately but met him on many occasions in Davenports and Harry Stanley’s studio and once played Spoof with him and a group of journalists on  a plane flying all the way from Gibraltar to London.

It is good that one of our greatest stars, ackowledged as the “comedians comedian”, is honoured in this way but on looking at the photographs of the statue am I alone in thinking if the pose chosen is the one most remembered by his public?

 He is shown wearing evening dress with tails  and waving a magic wand over a top hat. I saw him scores of times in performance and nearly always he wore a dinner jacket or a lounge suit and I can never remember him wearing tails for his comedy magic act. He did in some of the later  comedy sketches that he did on TV but his most identifying feature was of course his fez.

And whilst the artist probably featured the top hat and wand to signify that he was a magician, I think most people will remember him by the fez and his two hands lifted chest high as he emitted his famous trademark laugh – “ha- ha- ha”

His fame was so widespread that I am sure that this singular pose would have rendered him instantly recognizable. Much as the bronze statue of Eric Morecambe with one hand behind his head and skipping on one leg instantly identifies that other great comedian of the last century.