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

If you had paid him privately for a lesson in how to present magic it would have cost you many hundreds of pounds. It was top drawer stuff from a top professional. It was worth the price of  the convention registration alone.

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.

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.