Paul Daniels (18 page)

It wasn’t built originally as a shop. It had been a bus going around the Isle of Wight and used as a shop with very little alteration. Mam bought it first as a going concern and as an ‘add-on’ to her general store. We took it off the rounds and Dad and I rebuilt it and I ran it for her. Being Dad, he insisted that we gutted it completely and levelled the floor. By the time it was finished it even had a potato store in the boot and a freezer
box for the frozen foods. The sides were shelved and we carried an amazing array of goods. This was pre-mobile phone days, so if we ran out of anything we had to find a phone box and either Mam or Dad would bring it out to us.

When the refurbishment was finished, we stocked it up and off I went. The first corner we came to I couldn’t get the steering wheel to turn at all. I obviously wasn’t strong enough for this job. So I developed the knack of coming to the corners and taking the bus down to first gear. At the corner itself I would stand up, leaving the bus in first gear, stand to one side of the wheel and heave the top of the wheel towards me using my body weight. Thankfully, the bus had plenty of room on both sides of the wheel. This went on for months and I built up muscles that I didn’t know I had. Lynn, Jackie’s cousin, who worked on the bus as a shop assistant, used to laugh at my antics as we went around the estates of Grangetown, Dormanstown and Redcar.

One day, trundling from one stop to the next, I gave a man a lift to the next stop as it was raining. He watched me in amazement. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked. I explained that I wasn’t strong enough to drive the bus round corners and he asked what pressure I had in the tyres. ‘Well, now, it’s funny you should ask that. I couldn’t find out so I added about 101b of pressure to what I have in my car tyres,’ I replied. He laughed like hell. Together we trundled into a local garage where he put at least another 601b of pressure in every tyre.

At the next corner I shot up on to the pavement and nearly ran into a lamp-post, the bus was so light to drive. You learn something new every day. After that, even Jackie drove the bus.

Mam and Dad thought I was overdoing it a bit and insisted that we take a holiday. The only thing available that we could afford at such short notice was a week at Butlin’s Holiday Camp at Filey. Off we went and, after such a busy schedule, I was
twitchy at having nothing to do. I think it was the Monday afternoon I wandered past one of the theatres, heard a noise and went in. They were trying to cajole people into entering the talent contest and no one wanted to play. Just to help them out I went on stage and did a few tricks with the pack of cards that I always carried. By the time I had finished and broken the ice, a queue of hopefuls had formed and the audition was under way.

A Redcoat asked me my name and cabin number and said that I would definitely be in the show that night. Crikey! I went off and checked my clothes and put together a few tricks from the stuff I had with me. I won the heat in the talent contest that night and was automatically put into the next heat the next night. Blimey! I spent the next day putting together an act for the next night because I didn’t want to do the same stuff. It’s funny how people will listen to the same songs over and over again but always want the comics and the magicians to keep coming up with new stuff.

I won that heat and was put into the semi-finals. I won again and now I was in a panic. A telephone call to Dad to bring some more props and he thought that I was mad. He reminded me that I was supposed to be on holiday. Well, he was right but I preferred having something to do. He brought some props and I put together an act for the Grand Final of the talent contest for the week. I won, but as it was the last week of the season, they were to hold the Grand Final of the talent contest for the season the next night. I was on again and this time put together an act that finished with the World-Famous Bullet-Catching Trick. Well, nearly. This was a comedy version where it was announced that as the marksman had failed to turn up, I would shoot the gun at myself.

This was, believe me, a very funny routine. I had done it before and I knew it was a killer. The gun is very tiny when
you take it out of the very large pistol box but it fires with a huge bang. As the smoke clears a huge steel bullet is seen in your mouth and you spit it out ‘for examination’ on to a plate. The plate smashes and, for some reason only known to the Gods of Comedy, this situation is so ludicrous the audience fall about laughing.

That night I worked with more great talent in one place than I have ever worked with since. All the acts were great entertainers. What a show. My turn and the act went like a dream. Everything worked, the audience laughed in all the right places. I came to the finale, the World-Famous Catching the Bullet in the Teeth trick. The laughs were still coming. The smoke cleared and I spat the bullet out on to a Butlin’s dinner plate and it just sat there. The plate didn’t break. The audience just sat there waiting for the punchline that would never come. I had nothing left to do. I walked off. This was before Mervyn was my manager, so his claim that I never died is true, for him. This was the only time that I ever walked off to the sound of my own feet and the feeling is still inside me. I walked out into the car park and threw the plate as high as I could. It landed without a scratch. I should have checked the prop before I went on stage and everything has been double-checked ever since.

This work overload did not overawe me and, indeed, had the opposite effect as I found how much I enjoyed my new, frantic lifestyle. It conveniently enabled me to escape from the problems at home and my busy routine helped repair some of the holes in my self-esteem.

Finishing a series of engagements in Manchester, I got involved in some arguments between Betty and a landlady in one of our regular digs and this had started a spate of rows between us. With this awkward relationship bubbling underneath, I later overheard her extol the virtues of her little Billy to a Manchester agent. Having left the door open, I heard
the dialogue erupt into a full-blown argument when the agent suggested that although her son was an excellent guitar vocalist, he could pick up the telephone and within an hour have 100 others standing in his office. He went on to try to explain to her that what was really unique was the guy outside. This is the truth – I honestly was looking around to see who he was talking about and it turned out to be me. Understandably this can’t have gone down well with Betty.

After a few days of working under the intense tensions that had now pervaded our team, I said I would leave. Sadly, although explaining that I just couldn’t work under such a bad atmosphere, we parted company on bad terms.

Not only was I left with a bad taste in my mouth, but a hole in my pocket, for I had now begun to rely on the extra money the shows were bringing in. No matter how much you earn, your expenses increase to match the income. Glancing through my address book at the names of several agents I had bumped into over the last two years, I telephoned Joe Vipond, a Middlesbrough agent. Explaining my predicament and tentatively enquiring whether there was a possibility of any work in the next few weeks, he replied, ‘How about tomorrow night?’

Astounded, I accepted the gig for more money than I had received with the concert party. From this moment on, I got so much regular work on higher fees that I soon put the grocery shop on the market, convinced that I was now able to support the family single-handed.

The reply to my offer of a sale came in the form of a large Indian family who arrived on my doorstep the next day.

‘Excuse me, sir? Most important question: is it right you are selling the shop?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well now, the most important question: can we look round?’

‘Yes, of course.’ I watched as all his relatives trundled courteously
around from potatoes to plums.

‘Well now, the most important question: can we be selling other things beside this?’

‘I presume so, it’s not for me to say. The local council will no doubt advise.’

‘So, the most important question: can I be opening longer hours than you?’

‘I’m sure that’s fine,’ I said, becoming more bewildered at the friendly interrogation by the moment.

‘Well then, most important question: how much?’

Explaining that the price should include the shop with the stock, the rates and the licence on top, I disclosed my figure.

‘One moment please,’ he smiled, as he disappeared out of the door, returning moments later with a suitcase.

‘Here you are, sir,’ he beamed, as he plonked the case on my little counter and opened it to reveal several stacks of crisp notes. ‘Goodbye.’

‘I’m sorry?’ I said slightly stunned.

‘You sell shop, I want to buy and here is money, goodbye.’

I explained that in England it was important to get solicitors and agents involved but his excuse was that they cost money and we didn’t need them anyway, we had struck a deal on our own. For the life of me I couldn’t think why not, but I persuaded him that I had to do it legally and it was only a matter of weeks before our little corner shop had a new manager and a new identity.

The bus-cum-mobile shop had to go as well. Lynn and I had built up a good relationship with most of our customers and it was a bit of a sad day when we made the last tour. Mind you, it was not all sadness. In Dormanstown we had one lady who’d clamber aboard and used to point at everything with a long, bony finger. ‘How much is that?’ and ‘How much is that?’ and ‘How much is that?’ Whenever she had got off the bus in the
past Lynn and I would do ‘parrot’ impressions as we drove away: ‘How much is that? Who’s a naughty boy?’ It was a regular routine. The last day she climbed up and went into her regular routine. It just so happened that we had some of those cream doughnuts with the hole in the middle on the counter. As she pointed at them and started to ask ‘How much …’ I upped with one of the doughnuts and jammed it on to her pointing digit. As she gaped, Lynn and I were rolling about laughing. I told her that one was free.

At the next estate, a lady came on board who, particularly when the bus was full, would say that something was much cheaper on Andy’s bus. He was our ‘competition’ and what she was saying just wasn’t true. I pointed out that she should go and shop on Andy’s but she never did. We used to sell some lovely custard tarts. About 6in round they were, and about 2in deep. Lovely. She bought one. She stood there as I scooped up the tart with my right hand, careful not to break the light pastry that surrounded the custard. My left hand flicked open the white paper bag. ‘In the bag or in your face?’ I asked. Without moving (silly girl) she started to say, ‘You wouldn’t d…’ and she had a face full of custard. Lynn wet herself. Luckily, the woman laughed as well and I said that I would run her to the end of the road where she lived. As I set off she came alongside me in the bus holding a custard tart in her hand. Until this moment in my life I had never laughed at slapstick comedy. I started to laugh so much that I could hardly control the bus. I knew that when I stopped I would get it. I drove slower but eventually got there. I stopped. I got it. Getting a custard pie in your face is one of the funniest things that can happen to you. Don’t believe me? Go on, bake some. Have a party!

We bought a new terraced house with a garden in South Terrace, still in South Bank. Jackie and the boys moved in. So did I, but not for very long. Jackie fell pregnant with Gary and
he was born in 1969. I missed so much of his growing time, diving home whenever possible to see him and Paul and Martin. The decision to turn full time pro meant that I dared not turn down any job that came my way.

With no shops to run I was now free to move anywhere within clubland and I did so. My first full week as a pro was with a rock ‘n’ roll star called Vince Eager. Over hundreds of performances my act had sorted itself out into, dare I say it, a unique and entertaining style. The manner in which the tricks were delivered was so very different that I suppose I was the equivalent of the alternative comedians that came along later.

That first week with Vince we were in South Wales and I think that Mountain Ash Conservative Club was the first gig. I remember that because Mountain Ash had the cleanest public toilets I had ever seen. Things like that leave an impression on a travelling man.

On one of the gigs that week the backing was, as usual, organ and drums. The problem in most clubs was that the musicians could not read music. The COMMITTEE who listened to them as they played their repertoire of learnt-by-ear music, magnificently pounding out the ‘Dam Busters March’ and the like, would have nothing bad said about their band because THEY employed them. ‘The finest in the Valleys’ or, in the North, ‘You’ll get none better, Ah’ll tell you that, none better.’

At this Welsh venue, Vince had talked the ‘dots’ (music) through with the ‘musicians’ and on they went. There was a balcony and I went up there to watch the spot. As soon as they had started it was obvious that the organist had no idea what was going on. Vince decided after the first song to lose the organist and go ahead by accompanying himself on the guitar and just use the drummer. The organist took the hump at this and went off stage to the right. The second number started and slowly, ever so slowly, the right-hand curtain started to close. It
was obvious to everyone except Vince that someone was pulling the cloth nearer and nearer to the organ. A hand came out and picked up the cigarette that had been left burning on the end of the keyboard and it and the curtain went back to the right. Clouds of smoke came out from the wings where the organist was obviously doing his impression of the famous cigar advertisement.

The song finished and I should explain that most organs had a squat oblong freestanding speaker. Not this one. It had a tall, upright speaker between the organ and the drums and as Vince was doing his link to the next song, the drummer shuffled in a crablike movement sideways behind the tall speaker. His bum suddenly appeared on the right side of the speaker as he bent down and, when he straightened up, the bottom of a pint glass appeared on the left side as it described an arc in the air as the drummer got a drink. He bent over again (we could see his bum) and then he appeared in the same peculiar, legs-bent-facing-the-audience-crab-like-movement back to his drum stool.