The Strait Jacket That Never Made it to The Lake
Let me cast your mind back to 1989: Madchester, shell suits and that glorious sound of a Walkman chewing your favourite cassette tape halfway through side B.
This was the year I found myself standing in front of my classmates performing a few magic tricks that I’d been secretly practising for months. The ring melted through the string someone shouted. A couple of people even gasped and by the time I’d finished doing my ‘set’ my classmates were amazed.
It felt good, really good. I’d only just been allowed back into school after a suspension for what the headmaster called a very serious incident but to 13 year old me, getting your Irish mate to call in a bomb threat to school was just a bit of harmless fun and a genius way of getting out of geography and maths.
How was I to know the police would turn up? I certainly didn’t picture my mum being summoned to the high school equivalent of a Cobra meeting! The teachers made it sound like I was auditioning for an international crime syndicate.
It didn’t even occur to me that the person on the other end of the phone would recognise my mate’s voice and hear me laughing in the background! In hindsight there was only 3 Irish kids in my school then, so I don’t actually think my plan was all that good.
The suspension was inevitable, so was my reputation. Earlier that year my history teacher (Mr Brown) even took the liberty of writing in huge letters across the front of my report:
When Ryan leaves school he is DOOMED!!!
Doomed was written in red ink complete 3 exclamation marks… Just in case there was any doubt.
It didn’t matter to me because I hated school anyway but during that suspension, something changed. While everyone thought I’d be skiving in the arcade, I was at home practising magic.
My bedroom mirror became my audience. I learned my tricks, the angles, the timing and the patter.
Back in school, after my mini magic show, my form tutor: Mr Bone, who I actually liked because to me his name sounded like he was either a Bond villain or a pirate and even after all the fights, fire alarms and toilet floodings, he was always nice to me.
He asked me to stay behind, he leaned on his desk, looked at me over the top of his glasses and asked:
Do you know who Harry Houdini was?
I had no idea, my knowledge of magic back then was limited to the only magic book I had and the two magic related books in the city centre library.
Mr Bone told me all about Houdini’s death defying escapes:
Locked in handcuffs, imprisoned underwater and escaping from a straitjacket. My imagination lit up like a firework.
The name Houdini stuck in my head.
That Saturday, I was on a mission. I was determined to find out more about Houdini. I set off walking to town, I’d never liked waiting for buses because in my mind it was quicker to walk plus there was less chance of getting shot.
This was Gunchester after all and I was from one of the roughest estates that was at the centre of the gang violence in the city.
I headed into town and straight to Waterstones, made my way to the counter and asked:
Do you have any books on Harry Houdini?
Luck was on my side… They had one.
The Secrets of Houdini
Not only a history of the man himself but actual explanations of his methods, I’d struck gold. I bought it without hesitation, money wasn’t an issue because I had an evening job washing dishes at a Thai restaurant.
I started reading before I’d even left the shop. By the time I got home, I’d probably read half the book. By the end of the weekend, I’d read it cover to cover multiple times.
My school magic shows were short lived as it wasn’t long before the headmaster had enough and I got permanently expelled.
It could have been the theft of a horse from a local farm and letting it loose in the playground fiasco but I honestly don’t remember which straw broke the proverbial camel’s back.
All was not lost though because it was after I got kicked out of school when I had my EUREKA! moment…
If Houdini could escape from a straitjacket underwater, why couldn’t I?
Brian Fisher was onboard, he was 2 years older than me but just as daft and he was well up for being my accomplice.
The plan was perfect in our heads:
Step 1: I’d be put inside a wooden box, wearing a straitjacket.
Step 2: The box would be nailed shut.
Step 3: Brian would row me inside the box out to the middle of Heaton park boating lake and throw the box in.
Step 4: Moments later, I’d appear at the side of the lake, soaking wet and triumphant.
We even imagined the newspaper headlines:
Local Lads Amaze Crowds With Houdini Style Escape.
We scouted the lake. We talked about where the box would be made and stored until showtime (His dad’s shed). We even hired a boat, he practised rowing and I practised holding my breath while fully submerged in the lake
There was just one tiny set back: I didn’t own a straitjacket. Things were hard to find in 1989, we didn’t have Google and the Yellow Pages didn’t list Straitjacket suppliers!
The dream fizzled out but it never completely died.
Fast forward thirty years, my wife got me a birthday present:
A real, authentic straitjacket. The missing piece to my lifelong quest. My ridiculous teenage plan didn’t seem so ridiculous now.
I tried it on. Getting out was much harder than it looked.
I sweated, strained and probably looked like I was fighting invisible bees but I loved it. That teenage thrill was back.
I started to think maybe it wasn’t too late and then the universe laughed at me. My body started to remind me that I was no longer a fearless youth full of gusto and bendy body parts.
Oh and Brian Fisher was nowhere to be found either!
At this point the sensible part of my brain (yes, it does exist) spoke up:
You’re not 13 anymore. You’re a mentalist now, your job is to create impossible situations in people’s minds, not escape from a box at the bottom of a lake.
So, I made the decision to sell the straitjacket.
Letting go of a dream that’s lived in your imagination for thirty years is never easy but my passion for mentalism had completely eclipsed my teenage desire to risk hypothermia and possible drowning.
Sometimes, our dreams change but that’s not failure, it’s just evolution.
As the good Doctor says:
Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way or another.
I’m still mad. I’m just a different flavour of madness now and I think I like it better that way.
I suppose the purpose of this post is a reminder for you to:
NEVER STOP DREAMING!
Thank you Mr Bone for the dream!
ЯYΛП MΣПƬIƧ
International Man of Mischief