Stories from my youth - Sherbet and the magician
1976/78
Sherbet.
I don't remember exactly how the sherbet factory came about. I don't think I could read properly when I was seven so I must have heard somebody mention that if you mixed bicarbonate of soda with icing sugar you got sherbet. I remember being genuinely confused about why everybody wasn't making their fortunes out of selling sherbet when it was clearly the easiest and most delicious thing in the world to do. I'm not sure how I persuaded my teachers to let me do it but I clearly remember setting up a little table at the sports day selling little bags of white powder to my fellow pupils. I guess they thought it would be wrong to stop my naturally entrepreneurial spirit. I never sold any even at only 2 cents a bag. Probably just as well as at some point during the course of the day it occurred to me that I was not completely sure that you made sherbet by mixing bicarbonate of soda with icing sugar and I might be about to poison somebody. I packed up and went to watch the sports stuff. You'll be pleased to know I have gone into the arts and not into selling Cocaine.
The magician
I remember my first box of magic tricks; ropes, sponges, cups, multicoloured silk hankies and magic wand. I stayed into magic well into my teens and had a fair size collection of tricks at one point. I remember visiting magic shops with my Dad. I even learnt some card tricks and slight-of-hand stuff from a magician we met at a family night out. He was doing a live magic show, he did a levitation at one point. I was spell bound. I guess my Dad must have planned it. He joined us at our table after the show and did some card tricks just for us. It was magical. He was quite keen to have me as an apprentice and teach me as I was obviously so keen and my Dad took me round to his house for my first lesson a week or so later. I repeatedly asked if I could have more lessons with the magician and I was angry with my Dad for not taking me backΒ but my mother explained that my father wouldn't allow it as the magician was quite clearly a paedophile. The magician had said to my dad that he needn't hang around the whole lesson and I think that that is what made my Dad concerned. I was after all only about 9 or 10 at the time. Alarming how much one forgets as you get older. Nice memories of a time when my Dad was trying to engage with me more.
