Did you dream of entering the Magic Circle at the age of 10?
My bid to be the Great Humdinger was short lived really. It ended abruptly when I grew up!
Anyway, the sorts of tricks I did as a kid were all the result of two things:
1. reading paperback books of tricks by Piccolo and the like
2. receiving magic sets by the likes of Merit and Spears
Cards were boring for me so they were off the list. I much preferred props to work with.
The props were any of the plastic tricks from my sets and material garnered from the house like hankies, a chair and a broom.
One of my favourite trick gadgets was a sort of egg cup that you could lift the lid off revealing a kind of ping pong ball. I loved that thing!
Another one was a magic box in which coins disappeared and reappeared. It was a plastic rectangle again from a boxed magic set.
My magic has left me now and so have all my tricks. I am a purveyor of reality these days.
Did you proffer Magik readers?
I remember the Airfix Hanky Panky magic set I got one Christmas had the egg cup trick. Sadly I got bored with the set after a day or two, not my thing :(
ReplyDeleteDon't recall that particular set Yorkie but I love the name! Hanky Panky! For some me reason I've just thought of a TV magician called Um Bongo! Remember him? Or was it Ally Bongo?
DeleteStill got that egg cup trick, Woodsy, bought many years ago because I remember a classmate having one. I remember two tricks in particular: one was a magic wand that, when you pushed it down in your clasped hand, would 'magically' rise back up again, and the other was a little tube on a piece of elastic that made small hankies or tissues disappear up your sleeve or under your jumper. You hid it in your cupped hand and pushed the hankie or tissue into the unseen tube, waved your other hand over it as you let it go, and hey, presto - it had 'vanished'. I used to do this trick as a kid, but a couple of neds spread the rumour that I was doing it with people's coins and thus robbing them. The fact was that the tube was too small to accommodate any coin of the realm, so it was a total lie invented merely to badmouth me. Some people never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?
ReplyDeleteThese days they call it fake news eh Kid! Back then we'd have called 'em shitstirrers. I like Ned though. That's a new one on me. Both those tricks ring a bell especially the elasticised wand. I can feel it now springing in my hand. Must have been in a magic set I had by Merit or Spears. I'm impressed you took your magic out of the home to a wider audience. You could have gone all the way Kid!
ReplyDeleteMagic tricks was one of the things that just didn't float my boat. I can remember going to what we called 'Joke Shops' and see all the different, and odd, toys and just sorta walking out. I was way to involved with Little Green Army Men, spaceships, and Cowboy and Western toys.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean Ed. Tricks were always a sideshow to the main event of space and monsters for me. Jokes on the other hand were part of my childhood. With two older brothers the house was full of whopee cushions and dissolving spoons!
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