Magical send-off as Gandi calls it a day
FOR the past 28 years, popular Wicklowman Gandi the Magician has been entertaining children, parents and staff at St Iberius National School in Wexford with his sleight of hand.
He was booked again to perform just before Christmas.
But Gandi, whose real name is Francis McFadden, fell ill a few months ago, and called the school to tell them he had had to hang up his magic wand.
Despite the disappointment, the school invited the 82-year-old to come along anyway and to meet some of those whose lives he had enriched with his special blend of magic over the past decades and, on this occasion, it was the school who pulled the rabbits out of the hat in the shape of some of the fans he had met along the way.
In recognition of his years entertaining the youngsters, Gandi was presented with a ‘Certificate of Magic’.
‘I have terrible mixed feelings about not doing magic any longer, a lot of sadness, all my show clothes, everything I have. I’m absolutely lost, but that’s life,’ Gandi told this newspaper.
‘I didn’t expect them to invite me to come to the school when I said I wouldn’t be able to perform. Doing the magic show didn’t wear me down at all, but I’m unwell and not able to perform it anymore. I was really grateful when they still invited me to the school,’ said the ageing magician.
Gandi’s family has had long associations with shows and traditional entertainment and his fist cousins still entertain at strawberry fairs and McFadden’s FunFair in Wicklow.
‘My mother was born into the circus and my father was brought up in a touring stage show, so it has always been part of my life,’ said Gandi, who said he been a magician for more than 40 years.
‘I didn’t really do anything else, the odd bits, but not really anything else and as long as I had enough to pay my bills I was happy,’ he said.
Gandi, who has lived in Blackwater in Co Wexford for 27 years, lost his school teacher wife Jean seven years ago, but despite the loss he soldiered on, entertaining the crowds whenever the opportunity arose.
He met Jean when he was working as a magician many years ago in the UK and performing in Southend, Blackpool and Brighton, and at the same time he met a certain Paul Dan- iels and Debbie McGee.
‘You might have heard of them,’ said Gandi. ‘I came back home then and about 10 years later, Paul told me that he was coming to Ireland to perform in Limerick where I was the support act.’
Asked about his recipe for success as a magician, Gandi said it was all down to being well prepared and if you were entertaining children, make sure you appealed to the adults too.
‘Parents need to enjoy the shows too, so you don’t want to make it all Mickey Mouse... it’s all about family entertainment.’
Gandi said he didn’t think much of modern magicians.
‘A lot of them lack any personality. They are more like business people than entertainers,’ he said.