John Carey’s Beginnings

What a nice, hum­ble and (above all) sol­id way John Carey got start­ed in mag­ic (tak­en from his run­ning week at the Mag­ic Cafe Forum). Worth a read and con­sid­er­a­tion:

It all began for me as a kid of 9 stuck in a hos­pi­tal bed. Mum and Dad bought me a book by the late David Nixon which total­ly fas­ci­nat­ed me. I learnt every trick and puz­zle in that book and it real­ly gave me a sense of achieve­ment to show friends and fam­i­ly those lit­tle tricks.

A cou­ple of years lat­er I got a Paul Daniels box of tricks and a bit after that his book. I was com­plete­ly hooked! I then start­ed get­ting books out of the library to study and in one of them was a list of nail order sup­pli­ers of mag­ic. I sent away for cat­a­logs and lists and every few weeks a new par­cel full of mag­i­cal treats would arrive.

I con­tin­ued pick­ing up these lit­tle tricks for a few years and then at the East­bourne IBM Con­ven­tion in 1986, every­thing changed. On the late night close up show I saw fit the first time a gen­tle­man called Kevin Reay per­form. I was aston­ished as coins assem­bled under cards, fruit appeared under met­al cups and play­ing cards seemed to do things that just seemed incred­i­ble.

After the show I approached Kevin and he was so warm and kind. I told him I had been buy­ing tricks but want­ed to be able to learn what he did. We met the next morn­ing at the deal­ers and he told me to buy the Roy­al Road to Card Mag­ic. This changed every­thing. He advised me to just study one chap­ter at a time slow­ly and patient­ly. We began to meet reg­u­lar­ly and Kevin would observe my work from that won­der­ful book and help me iron out any areas.

To see him bring the pages of that book to life and show me how with focus, enthu­si­asm and dis­ci­pline I could learn and improve was pro­found. I will nev­er for­get him and all he did for me.

John Carey