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Part Two
"...most books in the field are badly written: either egregiously overwritten for effect, drama, suspense; or given to hypothesised dialogue in order to lend the air of a story to the proceedings... or ghost-written, plain tales from the ranks turned into gussied-up fabrications at the hands of professional ghost writers..." "...No wonder, then, that as a field the literature is not taken seriously by serious readers. This is too bad. It is a very serious field." American historian Robin Winks
Inspired by Booth's articles in The Linking Ring, I originally hoped to present an account of Jasper Maskelyne's wartime adventures based not only on the material in David Fisher's book but also on Maskelyne's own account, "Magic-Top Secret", if it could be located. In addition, by exploring recently released information about parallel wartime deception operations, I aimed to provide a more up-to-date analysis of the events in question. I then intended to subject even this extended account to critical examination — from the perspective of the sceptical military historian. As you will see over the next few articles, I have still kept to this general plan. However, the story of Jasper Maskelyne is a complex one and before discussing his adventures in the North African campaign we need to clear some important preliminary ground. Not only historians of magic but even professional historians (who should know better) have frequently taken the bait and succumbed to the seductive tale of "The War Magician". A hero of a previous generation and of a previous war, Lawrence of Arabia — a classic subject for pathography — should act as a warning to readers : proceed carefully ; there is a story to be told but parts of it may be fantastical. When I read "The War Magician" for the first time in late 1992, I began to suspect that certain incidents were overelaborated and too dramatically convenient to be true. Later I will discuss in more detail some of these questionable passages. In my introductory article, I criticised "The War Magician" for its lack of index, references and footnotes. This might seem academic or pedantic, but without this scholarly underpinning there is no mechanism for backtracking and verification once doubts set in. My first impression was that "The War Magician" resembled a work of creative non-fiction, tantamount to a loose documentary novel. Nevertheless, like many others, I still assumed that there was a kernel of truth to this book. After gathering further pieces of the incomplete jigsaw , including references to Maskelyne by retired intelligence operatives, I drew up a ten-page interim analysis of Jasper Maskelyne's wartime career, complete with a hit-list of blunt questions. The groundwork had been prepared. It was now time to contact Jasper's son Alistair Maskelyne. I knew already from his daughter Angela that he might be sensitive to such enquiries from an outsider. I did not expect a detailed response. If anything, I feared a polite but brief note along the lines that he was too young at the time, that he hardly knew his father and could not comment with authority on either his father's memoirs or Fisher's book. At best, I hoped he might clear up a few discrepancies and point out one or two errors in Fisher's account, but would remain reluctant to discuss his eminent father. At the same time, I realised that my letter, which was highly critical of the accepted accounts, could easily be interpreted as an attack against his father's reputation and honour. The very name Maskelyne harks back to a dynasty that is highly revered in the magic world. Edwin Dawes in his classic book "The Great Illusionists" devotes a whole chapter to John Nevil Maskelyne (Jasper's grandfather) and his partners and successors. Dawes regards the Maskelyne family as" a dynasty that has no parallel in the annals of British conjuring and one which , in presenting a theatre of magic continuously in London for sixty years, cannot be matched anywhere in the world." I therefore was not sure what reaction I might get from Jasper Maskelyne's son. My letter might be abruptly dismissed as an amateurish compendium of conjecture. Feeling somewhat like an upstart for questioning the legend of "The War Magician" , I nevertheless recognised that an opportunity like this should not be squandered. Alistair Maskelyne could surely offer a valuable insider's account. As a surviving family member, he might be in a position to either confirm or refute my suspicions. Fortunately, Alistair Maskelyne was receptive and sympathetic to my enquiry. He immediately responded with a seven-page typewritten letter which contained very useful information about his family and his father's chequered career: "You certainly opened a can of worms with your well-researched enquiry bringing back to me a world of memories, not all of them welcome." Alistair Maskelyne's letter is fascinating in its own right. He is not interested in the misinformed eulogising about his late father. He is critical of the way Fisher has elevated his father's war career by developing the myth of "The War Magician". He would prefer to set the record straight, warts and all: " My answers to you will be as truthful as I can make it, rendered less than accurate only by the passage of time and failing memory." In order to tackle the enigma of "The War Magician", we need to go back further, beyond "Magic-Top Secret" and begin with "White Magic", a purported history of the Maskelyne dynasty. (Fortunately, Australian Geniis Editor, Brian McCullagh was able to lend me an old copy of White Magic which he had purchased at a Geniis auction in late 1992 and I was able to examine its contents.) Alistair Maskelyne provided an interesting anecdote about the book's provenance. In 1935, Jasper Maskelyne was in dire financial straits. Two years earlier, after an argument with his brothers, he had quit St. George's Hall , their London theatre base, and had embarked upon a solo career. After initial acclaim , his touring magic show began to lose momentum. At this time, his wife and two children were living in a rented cottage in Surrey and finding it hard to make ends meet. This was, of course, a period of hardship for many millions of people. "My father continued his music hall tours. The money was not good, and I recall being quite incredulous, as a small boy, that he should get so much financial respect from British firms acquainted only with his family reputation, and not with his real situation, which often meant that my mother had no funds to pay the grocery bill at the end of the month." "Father was keen to get additional money by any reasonable means, and an opportunity was presented when a "ghost writer" offered to write an "autobiography" of Jasper Maskelyne. This was accomplished , and published as "White Magic" in about 1936. I read, as an interested party, but found little there that was related to truth, because the ghost writer had happily invented whole sequences outside of the essential history. My father seemed not to mind these fictitious events. This book was the precursor of "Magic Top Secret" by the same author in 1946." The letter now proceeds with information of great relevance: "Magic Top Secret: This was a ghost written largely fictional account of my father's western desert experiences. When I was given a preliminary draft to read in 1946 my comment to father was "there is so much overdramatised fiction here that it is obviously untrue. Can we get it rewritten to present your wartime feats on the lines of a serving officer?" The ghost writer's reply: "there were thousands such. It would never sell". In the event , the book sold about five copies, and a copy requested by TIME was returned unreviewed. It was too poorly written and too much embroidered to sell. This was the book stumbled upon by Fisher some thirty years later and made up as the "War Magician", with the aid of my father's diaries he borrowed but never returned from my Uncle Noel and his wife Joan. * ALL EFFORTS TO LOCATE FISHER AND GET DIARIES HAVE FAILED. "It follows that this book is not "Maskelyne's own account", merely the ghost writer's endeavours to boost my father's recollections." As for the suggestion that Fisher's book was published in America so as not to contravene the British Official Secrets Act and my subsequent query as to how "Magic-Top-Secret" was ever published in the first place, Alistair Maskelyne torpedoes such elaborate conspiracy theories: "the British authorities would have had small problems with the official secrets act, a work of fiction cannot divulge any secrets." He is strongly dismissive of the early work : " You will not miss anything by being unable to get a copy of "Magic Top Secret", a load of rubbish, which however forms the base for Fisher's work, which has to be an improvement, although it, itself, is much a work of fiction." "Fisher did not ever meet my father: my father died in 1973, as you correctly surmise, and all of Fisher's reconstruction is based on the first poor work plus my father's diaries which were voluminous. I sighted these diaries in England in 1973 at the home of my Uncle Noel. My father had recently died in Kenya , and his diaries were left to Noel. All of the illustrations in the book were extracted from the diaries." (In the follow-up letter, Alistair Maskelyne expanded on this mystery of the missing diaries : "While talking about the diaries borrowed and not returned by Fisher , it should be put on record that in fact they really comprised press cuttings and photographs, and could not be designated as diaries in the real sense. Chronologically they were in a proper time sequence, but many pages were given over to pictures of young ladies, some rather attractive, appearing or disappearing from boxes or hammocks. I last sighted them at my Uncle Noel's house in Wiltshire in 1973.") Alistair Maskelyne then gave the following, sometimes pithy, answers to my questions: How reliable is Fisher's account of Maskelyne's activities? "Fisher's account is only 40% reliable: all the personal relationships and much of the sequences are fictional." Does it belong to the genre of creative non-fiction ? "Definitely creative non-fiction" Is "The War Magician" based on Maskelyne's own diaries/notes? "Yes, based on my father's notes but strung together with imagination not fact." How reliable/objective was Maskelyne himself ? "Unfortunately my father was most self creative in his own imaging. All of his geese were swans. He was financially irresponsible, and always most happy to enlarge his purse by any means that seemed timely even if not quite reputable. He left England and migrated to Kenya in 1950 to escape the clutches of the British Taxation authorities, he owed more money than he could pay. The tax was never paid, and he died in Kenya without returning." Were the anecdotes reconstructed and polished to have greater impact on the narrative? "Obviously Fisher did a good job in reconstructing and polishing." Facing revelations such as these, perhaps we should seriously question the reliability of the standard books on the history of magic which may be partly based on ghost-written material and inaccurate hearsay. Unless a more critical stance is taken towards the written record, later historians inadvertently regurgitate the myths and become unwitting accomplices to maintaining a fabricated record. Historians of magic in their enthusiasm for their craft become victims of their tainted sources. In the next article, we will examine in more detail Jasper Maskelyne's adventures in the British Army in North Africa. Even if "The War Magician" is an untenable hybrid of truth and fiction, it will be argued that the more plausible elements are worthy of attention. Separating the truth from the fantasy is a daunting task. The information is contaminated and distorted. And yet there are genuine accomplishments buried beneath the sand of exaggeration and fabrication.
MAGIC OR MAKE-BELIEVE? Alistair Maskelyne actually appears in the photograph at the front of "White Magic". He is the small boy standing to the left , leaning against his father ,Jasper, who is sitting on a deckchair next to his wife and daughter. An amusing incident , which would have taken place approximately sixty years ago , is recorded in "White Magic". Jasper had been showing friends a parlour trick with water. If you cover a full glass of water with a piece of cardboard , you can turn the glass upside down on a table top and remove the cardboard without the water leaking out. How do you then turn the glass back over without spilling the contents? The solution is simply to slide the glass over to the edge and catch the liquid in a second container. (An identical trick is written up in Martin Gardner's "Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic") One day, Alistair , his young son, tried to repeat the trick and managed to get halfway through the manoeuvre. However, instead of working on the family's oak table he had performed the trick on an expensive Queen Anne walnut table which became permanently stained by the water drops. In a follow-up letter, I asked Alistair Maskelyne if he could remember the 'walnut table' accident. He replied with these words: "This episode is entirely fictitious: even at the age of nine when the book was published, I remember asking my father what that was all about, and his rather embarrassed reply "the writer thought it would make the story more interesting". In the same letter, Alistair Maskelyne added the following anecdote: "While visiting his (Les Levante) rather grand house in Bellevue Hill, I noticed a copy of White Magic on his bookshelf. Scanning the fly page, the dedication read "to a real magician, here's a lot of nonsense for you to have a laugh at". This was the first time I had had confirmation of my suspicion : most of the book was just not factual." Alistair Maskelyne's comments on "White Magic" are most interesting. Perhaps a magic historian , with an expertise in the pre-war British magic scene, will one day carefully review the original text and disentangle the truth from the fiction. In a later article, I hope to discuss the Maskelyne dynasty in more detail and include some of Alistair Maskelyne's pointed comments about his late relatives. For example, contrary to the textbook accounts of conjuring history, he points out that his famous great-grandfather John Nevil was not strictly descended from the Maskelyne lineage! "It was while he was still the leasee of the Egyptian hall that my great grandfather had the idea of claiming the rights to his "family estate." Unfortunately, although he was a very talented illusionist, his knowledge of the laws of inheritance was very low. In court it was proved that his side of the Maskelyne family, if indeed it was of that family at all, was not legitimate , and he was, literally , laughed out of court."
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