Paul Daniels (10 page)

‘WELL, IT IS PAINFULLY HOBVIOUS THAT YOU HAVE FAILED IN YOUR DUTIES, ‘AVEN'T YOU?'

The reply was either unbelievably stupid or amazingly brave, I'm still not sure. Again, without looking up and continuing to polish: ‘Well now, Sarge,' spit, polish, ‘the thing is,' spit, polish, ‘I look at it this way. I'm going to piss in it, not eat out of it.'

They picked him up, dragged him off and we never saw him for another week.

Gym was far removed from anything I had experienced in a school PE lesson. The leather vaulting horse was enormous. Each one of the new recruits had to run forward at speed, jump on the spring-board placing two hands on the top of the horse, and do the splits over the top before landing on the other side, hopefully with hands in the air. The whole episode was carefully choreographed as the officer shouted the commands to keep us equidistant. Unfortunately, the boy behind me over-anticipated his cue and ran forward too early, hitting his head against my back just as I reached the top of the wooden horse. I'm not very lucky with vaulting horses. As I fell forwards with the impact, it twisted my right hand over on itself and, unbeknown to me, dislocated the joints in my fingers. In the Army, however, you just keep going and, despite the agony, I scrambled out of my gym gear into battle-dress in readiness for drill parade.

With the PE trainer's shouts of ‘You bloody idiots' following us on to the parade ground, we assembled in a strict line as quickly as possible. Standing at ease, with feet apart and rifles angled forward, we waited for the Sergeant Major's bellowed orders.

‘ATTENTION!' was the signal to bring the left foot up and down hard next to your right followed by the rifle coming upright.

‘SLOPE ARMS!' meant lifting your rifle with your right
hand whilst your left arm supports it. My right hand came up, but the rifle fell forward, committing one of the worst crimes known in the Army. I had dropped my rifle.

The officer stared in disbelief at my sin and, as he made his way slowly towards me, I glanced down at my hand. It had swollen up like a balloon and was incapable of holding a toothpick, let alone a rifle. I showed my predicament to the officer who was now staring me straight in the eye. With little sympathy, he ordered me off the parade ground to the medics who drove me straight to the local hospital, several miles away and my hand was put into a splint for several weeks. It wasn't the pain, the shock, or the lack of compassion that upset me; it was the fear of having my hand damaged to the point where I could no longer perform my magic.

Assigned to lesser details back at camp, I noticed that the pain and discomfort of my hand was not subsiding. I really panicked when they took all the dressings off. Why don't they tell you your body wrinkles up and gets dirty inside plaster? What a shock that was. After a few hours I went back to my normal shade of light pink and my skin straightened out. The problem was that my knuckles were still swollen and wouldn't bend. The Army gave me a weekend pass as compensation.

I was back home, but really anxious. Looking at the swelling and bruising, I was pretty sure that I might lose the use of my hand. I was normally good at being able to control any fear that engulfed me, but now I was truly frightened. Willing to try anything to save my hand, I decided to see a local osteopath. Considered a ‘quack' at the time, this kindly but authoritative man asked me to show him my hand. The knuckles were still all swollen and I couldn't bend any of them. He seemed to be holding it gently. I woke up on the couch. Apparently he had pulled them all back into position and my brain decided that I shouldn't be there while he did it.

He must have relocated the bones in my hand back into their rightful sockets. Within 24 hours, I had made a full recovery and was back at the army base able to do everything within a couple of days. Although my right-hand knuckle was to remain bigger than my left for the rest of my days, I was extremely grateful that my fears of never performing again were unfounded.

In the ninth week, we were awoken at 5.00am to prepare for a set of exercises. Marching up the several miles of Richmond Hill, one of the steepest inclines in the country, we marched down the other side and through a river. All day we repeated this route at the height of the Yorkshire winter. That evening, the company slept in the open on the bare, freezing ground, before being woken up for night exercises.

Before allowing the time and space for a moment's kip, the Army had served up ‘bad' stew. Surprisingly, the food was not as bad as I had expected, with chips served at most meals and even once at breakfast. The rest was average stodge, apart from on Christmas Day when it was brilliant. How the army cooks managed to switch from school dinners to French cuisine overnight I shall never know.

On exercises it was quite different and I chose not to eat the mess they were serving. I was the only one who did not get the ‘squirts'. Despite the pain and the agony of where we were, the difficulties of diarrhoea provided much humour and relief in the darkness of the countryside. When a flare went off, lighting up the ground below, all that could be seen was a row of bright white arses squatting in the hedge. The thought of camouflaging backsides had not been considered.

The exercise was called off and we were led into a barn where we were lectured on how stupid we had been. What happened that night could well have occurred in warfare, we were told. The men who had suffered from diarrhoea had given away their position, not only by the reflection of the flare on
their white arses, but also (can you believe that an officer of the British Army would point this out?) by the rustling of leaves as they cleaned themselves off.

It was difficult for any of us to keep a straight face, as the unbelievable scenario was unfolded before us. Even more astounding was the young squaddie who stood up and announced that he had indeed thought this problem through:

‘Sir! I gave this some consideration, Sir!'

‘Go ahead Jenkins!'

‘Sir! I did not use paper, Sir! I used my regulation handkerchief, Sir!'

As he spoke, from his pocket he pulled out a filthy brown slip of material that at one time had been used to wipe the opposite end of his body, to which he was now referring. The men either side of him fled and the rest of us were left in hysterics.

We were not let off the hook, however, and the following night the exercise was repeated with the task of capturing or defending a set of lamps strategically placed in difficult areas of the North Yorkshire moors. Sitting in the pitch-blackness of a dugout, I couldn't control a single part of my body. I don't think that I have ever been so cold since that night. My teeth were hammering together, my rifle was shaking and I couldn't stop it because I was so cold and wet. It felt like my uniform had been frozen to my body. I was jabbering.

I heard a noise behind me as a sergeant slithered down into my pit and ordered me to go and get the lamp. Instantly I jumped up, crawled over the lip of my hideout and crawled on my belly towards the light. As I approached my goal, I remembered what had been said on the first day about obeying orders without thought. That, I believe, is why the British Army was the best and most powerful in the world. I had gone from being a frozen wreck into a non-shivering, smooth-moving soldier at one command.

A few days later, part of the testing process was running a mile in full kit carrying your rifle. I was the first one over the line. Damn right I was. Was I the fittest? Was I the best trained? Nope, I was just more scared of the Sergeant than anyone else. Damn right I was.

Apart from the obvious asset of National Service for the country, there was a secondary benefit. It turned boys into men. It made us fitter than at any other time in our lives. Any 17-year-olds will argue that they are already men, but they are not. This process takes time to build competence and to gain the knowledge and experience to tackle anything in life.

Those weeks of training turned out to be the most demanding, yet productive, time of all. They laid a grounding that was worth more than any money and gave me a firm foundation to stand on in difficult years to come. I
know
I sound like an old man when I say today's youth has lost its focus and value in life and I would like to see National Service back on the agenda because it would change bad attitudes in a radically quick way. The only thing is that I don't believe we should bring back National Service as it was.

I shared my thoughts at a recent dinner party at which several top politicians were invited. I explained my reasoning and showed how it could be done in a different and possibly more beneficial way. Sadly, teachers have had all their powers of discipline and control removed by a politically correct society. Pupils have no fear of, or respect for, their elders, so they can choose to run wild if they wish and no one can control them. The 12 months of training would be for girls and boys, placing ‘townies' in country environments and vice versa. They should not be trained to fire a weapon, but instead go through all the drilling and the spit and polish that we went through, alongside learning the art of survival and aspects of advanced first aid. Being shown how to react in any form of emergency situation
such as a car accident or a fire, they would learn what the human being is perfectly capable of achieving. After a year learning how to save a life, it would be very difficult to go out and ‘mug' or knife somebody. Young people would be of great use and value to the society in which they live.

The politicians thought it would be an excellent scheme, but would be a political bombshell. Did this mean they weren't really in the job for the benefit of society as a whole, I enquired? My question was met with a dry smile and a forced laugh. It took me a long time to realise that politicians are not in the job for the good of the country.

I do not agree with the arguments allowing women in the same regiments as men. I am certainly a fighter for women's equality, but I do not think that mixed companies are a good thing. Neither do I believe in allowing homosexuals into the Army. It has nothing to do with being anti-women or anti-homosexual, because I'm not. It is simply the vital need for that command to be obeyed without question. If I am in love with the person next to me and we are instructed to go over the top, I might feel compelled to resist if my partner was in danger of getting hurt. Love is a more powerful instinct than any amount of training, but it could get in the way of winning a war.

As a result of military training, I watched as a shoddy group of guys from all walks of life became self-disciplined and controlled. Thickos and geniuses, boffins and brickies, rich and poor were turned into confident people who were fitter than they had ever been in their lives.

As I said, not everybody was from Yorkshire and at a time of little transport, we were able to hear tales about life in Wales, Scotland and Birmingham. We sorry bunch of stragglers had become a much more likely fighting force and as we marched into the local town after our night exercises, we felt like real men.

Something else happened almost without us noticing it. We
developed great pride in being Green Howards. Towards the end of the training, we went on a long march. We were tired as hell when we reached the bottom of that damn hill up to the barracks. When the band of the Green Howards struck up to greet us with the Regimental March as we turned the corner, it was amazing. Our shoulders went back, our chests went out and we just about flew up the hill. I am convinced that it was the rousing sound of the military band playing our march that enabled us to conquer the steepness of Richmond Hill that day.

My platoon was going abroad to Hong Kong. I went off to training with one other soldier from our Regiment, Peter Schollick. We stayed on in England to train as army clerks and were sent down to Chichester. It was there that I was shown how to touch-type and work with Queen's Regulations in two weeks. The Army had a great system for teaching typing and it was the best and most useful thing that the Army ever taught me.

With the little extra freedom we now had, my mate Peter and I discovered that the local girls had not heard of the Green Howards. We told them that we were trained jungle fighters and that is why we were called ‘green'. We could instantly melt into any tropical forest. Well, of course we could. To our amazement, they believed us. How they imagined this was true of the two pasty-faced Yorkshire youths who had never been abroad in their lives I shall never know, but they did.

Maybe we lost credibility about our ‘toughness' when I happily agreed to try the local cider. Having been a Northern lad, I was not used to the strength of the West Country's scrumpy. After only one pint it felt like my head was leaving my shoulders and I relied on the generosity of my friends to carry me home.

We left the course as qualified clerks, were given a week's leave and told we were going to Hong Kong.

A
lthough women’s liberation had begun its long journey 50 years previously with Emily Pankhurst, the late Fifties began to give rise to the modern female. Seventeen-year-old Marilyn Bell was the youngest person to swim the Channel and US tennis star Althea Gibson was the first black female to win Wimbledon. As the Barbie doll began mass production, screen goddess Brigitte Bardot shocked America with her sensual role in the Hollywood film And God Created Woman, while Marilyn Monroe’s poster showing her skirt rising up her legs advertising The Seven Year Itch was banned in New York.

Let me go back in time a little. Throughout my time at Eston Urban District Council I had dreamed of girls as well as magic tricks. I had dated but it never went much beyond kissing. Since time began man has constantly tried to get woman into bed, or on a grassy knoll. I’m not sure that I would have known what to do in either case. I had read about it and talked about it with my mates, but when it came to the real thing it was still a frightening prospect. I could easily chat up the opposite sex; it
was taking it to the next stage that seemed to elude me. I had a strong hunch that my colleagues boasted about escapades that were based more in their minds than in reality. Men, gathering in groups, have always claimed more than they have ever done. If we were to put a tax on sex, maybe we wouldn’t collect as much as we think we would, I thought then.

In an age when the ‘pill’ was unavailable and the female revolution in its infancy, sex was indeed a very risky business. Pauline had come and gone, as had my dreams of Irene. I had met a nice girl on a trip to Luxembourg but I didn’t want to know her when I got home again. Margaret Dawkins had been nothing more than a magician’s assistant to me and finished up marrying another friend, Don Freary. On the other hand, Avril was somehow special. I’m not sure where we met, maybe at the college I went to in preparation for accountancy in Middlesbrough, but I fell in love with the pretty blonde sufficiently to become engaged just before I joined the Army. Inviting me round to her house one evening, she deployed all those tactics women use to lead us lads astray. Well, maybe not astray, but to pop that question. What an innocent I was. Playing a record announcing it was dedicated to me, called ‘Mr Wonderful’, it was all too much for me and I dived in with a proposal. We nearly had sex but didn’t because the awareness of having to go away for two years was stronger than my desires. The last thing I wanted was to get this girl pregnant just before I marched off. Sex could wait, I thought, but sadly Avril didn’t. By the time I returned from the Army, she was in another man’s arms.

So I sailed for Hong Kong in July 1957 on the
Empire Fowey
still a pale-faced virgin. Hundreds of soldiers were on board heading for the Far East. There was a lot of discussion as to whether we were going around South Africa. If we did, we would visit Cape Town and legends had drifted back to the barracks about the incredible hospitality shown to British
troops passing through.

Some of the lads on board were seasick while we were still tied up waiting to sail, and as we cleared Southampton Water, the ship started to rock and roll. Heading for the Bay of Biscay, more and more men started to head for the ‘head’. This 28-day journey to Hong Kong was not going to be a luxury cruise. I was fine, not even queasy, until I needed to go to the ‘head’ for normal purposes.

The ‘head’ is nautical terminology for the toilets, located at the front, or ‘head’ of the ship. They were originally round holes cut out of the overhanging deck, positioned there since early Navy days. The British Navy had come on a long way since Trafalgar and it was once inside the ‘head’ I discovered that the Forces think of everything. Bolted alongside the walls of the latrines were metal troughs expressly for the purpose of vomiting in. A long metal rail ran the full length of this over the centre and was fixed at the perfect height for the men to hold on to and lean over as they brought up their insides. The sight of the deep steel canal filled to capacity with what seemed like the biggest collection of warm vegetable soup was too much to bear. As the ship rolled so the stuff sluiced one way and then the other. One whiff of the disgusting stench and I swiftly joined the row upon row of my colleagues at the ‘bar’. By the end of the day, my stomach was still ‘on fire’ because there was nothing left in it and yet I was still retching. When you are seasick you pray for an early death.

It turned out that we were to be the first ship through the Suez Canal after the recent Suez crisis in which Colonel Nasser had seized control of the thin strip of water that ran through his country. This waterway was an essential oil supply route for Europe and fortunately urgent diplomatic efforts short-circuited the seriousness of the situation. It cut our journey by weeks but we missed out on seeing Cape Town.

It didn’t matter. My Northern eyes saw sights that were hard to believe. From the Mediterranean and into the Red Sea, out into the Indian Ocean and across into the Pacific – it may all sound glamorous and, at times, the sight of the ship cutting through the glass-flat water was a spectacle, but the Army still held drills and shooting practice and all that jazz. Arriving in the Suez Canal provided its own entertainment with ‘bumboats’ crowding around the ship trying to sell souvenirs. I guess the closing of the canal had hit their business hard. Negotiations were made by shouting down the side of the ship and baskets were lowered on ropes to raise and lower the goods and the money. A failed deal, or even a bad deal, resulted in the locals mooning us. Maybe that’s where the name of their boats comes from.

On our journey through the canal we could see Russian MiG fighters standing on the horizon. We considered them a threat until I looked at them through a telephoto lens and I could see quite clearly that they had no engines in them.

The
gulli-gulli
man came on board at Suez. This character was an eastern magician who was allowed on board to entertain the troops and hoped to receive something in reward. It turned out that there are a lot of
gulli-gulli
men. The funniest thing was, that having looked forward to seeing this master of oriental trickery, I was surprised to noticed that all his props were from a magic dealer in London! Davenports, the magician’s paradise, was renowned throughout the world, I knew, but this seemed too far-fetched.

He had other exceptional examples, however, that were simply wonderful, including performing the cups and balls routine with tiny live chicks. Having arrived with several eggs, which he carefully placed in the heat of the ship’s engine room, by the time we had sailed down to the end of the canal, the chickens were hatched and our mystic conjuror had his props!
He was an extremely adept performer and made such an impression upon me, that I was to use this classic effect to open my act for years to come – minus the chickens, of course!

Borrowing a coin he would immediately throw it overboard and after pronouncing his magic words: ‘Gulli-gulli, gulli-gulli,’ he would ask the spectator to look in his pocket, whereupon the same coin was produced.

When the
gulli-gulli
man, nicknamed after the magic word he used, left the ship at the next port, he would take the chickens with him and sell them at a profit, to buy more eggs. Apparently, he ship-hopped in this way all year round.

All in all, I didn’t think he was particularly brilliant, but my shipmates did. It was then that I realised the benefit of a foreign accent: if he’d been British, he would have been booed off. Later in life, I was to meet quite a few
gulli-gulli
men and some of them are extraordinarily good at the art of magic.

The sleeping arrangements on board were interesting. The lower decks were filled with rows of upright poles that supported three bunks on each side one above the other, six in all, but the rows went on for ever. How many men were on our ship, I couldn’t imagine, but there were hundreds, possibly thousands, from all the differing regiments and corps of the Army. All I knew was that you really didn’t want to be in the bottom bunks during the time people were getting used to the sea.

Amazingly, as I made my tour around the Navy’s pride and joy, I came across another magician. He was also experienced in hypnosis and was able to cure my seasickness problem almost instantly. Hypnosis is a combination of voice and rhythm, but you need a quiet room for it to take effect. All we could find on board this heaving hulk was a shower cabinet. As I sat in there, hoping the showerhead wouldn’t drip on me, I let myself relax under the calming influence of my new friend. Having read up on the subject, I realised there were many different levels of
hypnotic states. I had no fear as the technique really involved self-hypnosis, realising it was often a case of needing a voice to guide you along. I also knew I had reserved, in spaces in my mind, the right to refuse what he would suggest to me. For the chance that this awful condition could be removed from me, I was more than happy to ‘let go’.

I could hear his gentle voice drifting into the background of my mind, but I was awake the whole time. He finished with a smile and I apologised saying that it hadn’t worked for me. ‘But you’re not feeling sick any more, are you?’ he enquired. I agreed with a ‘Wow!’ and from that moment enjoyed every minute of our four-week voyage.

Chatting afterwards, I found out that he was a manipulator and an expert with cards, coins, balls and cigarettes. He could make them appear from the most impossible places and I’m sure if he was completely nude and in a glass fish tank, somehow he would have been able to produce a set of billiard balls. He was also in the medical corps, where I felt his magic skills would probably come in quite handy.

The performance of our various skills became invaluable tools on the long haul across the ocean. Any magician should be able to work without proper equipment and be able to entertain using the things that surround him. A pack of cards was always available and is probably why so many tricks have been devised using this common ‘toy’.

Pocket Magic, as it was called, was my forte so I was in my element on board ship, as we astonished crewmen with the many effects we created. I thought he was a brilliant magician but he performed in the then quite common style of being very serious during the act. It was probable that my friend had been brought up in an age where this type of magic was akin to a juggling act. Manipulators would even reveal how the effects were done because the dexterity in performing them was
greater than the trick itself.

Despite his excellent abilities, he had respect for me, too. Strangely enough, these impromptu shows were an essential ingredient in laying the foundations for future presentation techniques. Although I was obviously not as skilful as my magic partner, it was the comedy and my enjoyment of what I was doing that brought what I did to life. As a result, there was a strong awareness that the audiences on-board ship liked my magic better. I couldn’t understand this at the time, but later I was to have a greater appreciation of the power of laughter.

Nevertheless, there was a surprising interest on board and word of my own performances must have got around for I was soon summoned to appear at a party in the Officers’ Mess. It was an early taste of a sort of on-board Royal Command Performance, for none of the other soldiers were allowed in these quarters. Not keen to disobey an order, or miss an opportunity, I prepared as best I could for the evening’s work ahead.

The Officers’ Mess was luxurious compared to the grey metal surroundings that the rest of us had. I began by presenting an adaptation of the
gulli-gulli
man’s coin trick, which I had logically thought through that day, point by point, eventually making it more baffling. Again, but without deliberately heading for it, comedy was an important element, as I borrowed a coin and had it marked by pencil. Another officer chose a card, which was again marked, this time with his name. Me being me, I then gave the coin, which had been wrapped in the card, to the Padre. We had both a Roman Catholic and a Church of England Padre on board, and I asked them to take the coin and card and throw them overboard.

‘Would you please go together,’ I joked, ‘as I know you don’t trust each other!’ and got my first laugh. Just before they left through the door, I asked them to check the card and coin, which were deemed to be correct. Upon their return I even got
the pair to swear on the Bible that they had indeed thrown the whole package overboard. When we opened the Bible, there was the card and the coin inside. The night wore on with me doing impromptu magic around the Mess.

Next day, I woke up at three o’clock in the afternoon with a head that thumped like
HMS Victory’s
cannon and a very furry tongue. An officer passed by, saw me and said, ‘Daniels, you’re a bastard.’ Despite my pounding head and very unsteady feet I knew the correct military response. ‘Yes, Sir. I’m a bastard, Sir.’

‘On the other hand, you were quite amazing. Quite brilliant,’ he went on.

This I didn’t agree to because I hadn’t a clue what he was going on about.

‘Sorry, Sir, I’ve got a headache.’

‘I’m not surprised, boy, the amount you drank last night emptied our bar! You said you didn’t want any. You said you didn’t drink but we commanded you. We had a plan you see. We had decided to get you totally pissed, so that we would see how you did it all. The frustrating thing was that the more pissed you became, the more baffling you were.’

‘Sorry, Sir.’

My dulled and throbbing mind could not remember much of what I had done. The officer gladly went on to remind me in detail.

‘Finally, you amazed us all by having a card chosen, replacing it in the pack and then you threw the whole pack at one of the porthole windows. Damn me if the chosen card was there, stuck to the window. On the outside! That’s when you said, “Sort that one out, you bastards,” and passed out. We had you put to bed.’

As the previous night’s antics slowly returned to my brain, his final words hit me like a blow to the stomach, when I realised what I had done. As the officer walked away, I looked over the side and felt my face turn white. There is no such thing as
magic, only acting, and at some point in the evening I must have stuck the card on the outside, but when and how I couldn’t remember.