What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 18th July 2014

David Whitson led off the magic with “Farmyard Frolics” in memory of Edwin, and his "Supreme Magic Company", an English manufacturer of magic items.  For many years this company produced large numbers of excellent children’s magic items.  David also performed the Linking Rings as a tribute to magician Richard Ross.

To honour local magicians, Joel Howlett had brought along his personal archives, and displayed them for us to explore.  Magicians represented were Brendan Montana, Tim Ellis, David Whitson, Troppo Bob, Super Hubert, Peter Jones, Uncle Rex Sinclair and “Horace”, Tony Laffan and Chris Kelly from Ship O’Fools.

John Ferguson gave a tribute to Gary Neville, a member of Newcastle Magicians who had passed away last year.   Gary had built a set of Tumbling Rings for John, and he demonstrated them, and gave the URL for a video of how to make them - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JbeQyk_rFQ].  Gary was particularly fond of these.

He was also fond of Bar Betchas.  John performed a number of Bar Betchas, including some balancing items that Gary had himself demonstrated on the TV show “Reach for a Rainbow”.

A Canadian magician, Stewart James, was active in the 1940’s – 1960’s and invented a massive number of magic tricks.  One of his most famous was a card effect that he called “Miraskil”.  Steve Irwin did a card item that was quite like Miraskil.  He also performed “Mother Goose”.

Our club’s Patron, Graham Holstein, gave tributes to Rex Sinclair.  “Uncle Rex” was a well-known Newcastle magician and radio announcer that continued performing to an advanced age here in Newcastle.  Graham gave reminiscences of his association with Rex, remembering Rex’s magic shop in Scott Street in the City.  Then Graham did a stunning performance of the “Magic Square”.

Andrew Pickard did a tribute to the magicienne Konnie Rooklyn, who was for some years a member of Newcastle Magicians, having previously been a member and President of the IBM Sydney Ring.  Andrew used the card guillotine made for her by the “Great Wong”, a Singapore magician.