Magical Christmas at Pentre Mawr

Jay recently performed in Pentre Mawr sheltered housing scheme in Abergele at their Christmas tea party. The following article appeared in The Journal.

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A touch of magic for party

A touch of festive magic  united the generations  at Pentre Mawr in Abergele this week when school children joined residents  at the Sheltered Housing Scheme for older people for their Christmas party.

Warden Alison Pring said: “Pupils from Ysgol Glan Gele kindly joined us to perform carols and songs then stayed to be completely mesmerised  along with our residents  by magician Jay Gatling.

“It was lovely to see an intergenerational  audience enjoying this  experience together. Thanks to a generous grant from Age Cymru we had a truly wonderful Christmas tea party. Many thanks as well to Jan Williams Tesco Community Champion, for her donation of goodies  for the children and to everyone who helped to prepare and serve the buffet.

Alison also paid tribute to Mrs Anne Rothwell, Chair of the Pentre Mawr Residents’ Association not only for her support for the Christmas Party but also for her contribution and support throughout the year, helping to make life happy and comfortable for all the residents at Pentre Mawr.

www.rhyljournal.co.uk

Gatling Magic featured in the Key Ring Magazine

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There was an article on us in the November issue of the Key Ring magazine, the monthly magazine of the British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

The article is reproduced here by kind permission of Key Ring magazine and their editor Geoffrey Newton.

For more information on the British Ring, visit their website www.britishring.org.uk

THE PEOPLEPAGE James and Sarah Dickson (known as Jay Gatling and Amelia)

Wizardry in Wales by Geoffrey NEWTON

I was trolling through the membership list the other day and found that James and Sarah Dickson of North Wales are both members of The British Ring. Granted they are not alone in this, but it is quite rare amongst the several hundred people in our society. I am very pleased to see this husband and wife team supporting us in such a manner. Their name was already familiar to me due to their success in winning the Theo Speaker Cup and Dittia Shield for Manipulation at the 2011 Southport convention. As a direct result of this I booked their act as seen for a subsequent dinner at The Order of The Magi, in my alter ego capacity as PRO there. See it pays to enter competitions so please pay heed and have a go yourself next year.

Although James originates from Kent, Sarah was born in North Wales. They became (then unknown to each other) interested in magic via different routes. James from a book on card tricks and Sarah having seen a magician perform at a Christmas pantomime in her home town of Rhyl. They met at North Wales Magic Circle and made their first performance together with ‘Elemental’ in 2008 winning the NWMC competition. The following year they had a summer season in Llandudno, honing this act to perfection and winning their local society competition again in 2010. This clearly had urged them to have a go at the IBM competition.

James and Sarah married in 2014 with a reception full of magic, with performances by many of the North Wales society members and even adding their own digital dexterity as part of the celebration.

Jay and Amelia (I’ll call them by that name from now on) are both actively involved in the Llandudno Victorian Extravaganza, held over the first May Bank Holiday and which will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2016. There are daily parades throughout the event with many people entering into the spirit by wearing Victorian costume. Jay presents mix and mingle magic and the two perform on the various stages in Mostyn Street which is specially closed off for the weekend. According to what I have read it is clearly a very popular event, proved by the large numbers who attend.

I had to ask about any disasters but luckily they generally seemed to have escaped these so far. A near miss though has come their way on a couple of occasions. Once when the wrong music was playing, fortunately Jay knew the piece so battled through with no one any the wiser. The other was when Amelia forgot to unpack the Losender floating table and Jay was on stage performing with just one minute to it being needed. Talk about a high speed prop set. She just made it and Jay knew nothing of the panic until he had finished the act.

Amelia told me of her most exciting performance, on the stage of the Rhyl Pavilion when they were the interval act whilst the judges were adjudicating at the Welsh Factor competition. It happened to be the very stage where she had seen a magician all those years ago and which had hooked her into magic in the first place. Jay has another interest, as a trained swordsman and he presents sword displays with a friend Erwyd le Fol. Their performances are appropriately called ‘Two the Hilt’. I bet he can do a great Card Sword or Sword through Neck!

I have a few more people in the pipeline to write about, so keep reading as it is amazing what you learn about your fellow members.