‘The day I was chained up by a young Tom Jones’
I received an email from Bernard Palmer, who lives in Sydney, Austrial, who wrote: “Fifty years ago I was an assistant to Len Lewis in a concrete testing laboratory at Bowles, Sand and Concrete, Cardiff.
“Len belonged to the Cardiff chapter of the Magic Circle where the magicians would meet to do whatever magicians do.
“Our boss Peter was also a magician and he and Len were great friends.
“Len was badly affected with asthma and was often too sick to work and I guessed that stopped him from pursuing his true career as an escapologist so I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had performed at the London Palladium. He was a true showman.
“A couple of times I carried his heavy equipment when he appeared in some of the working men’s clubs in the valleys as he was too sick to do so.
“My second job, which I hated, was to stand at the back of the audience and start the clapping as this was a problem as many people were so amazed at some of the things he did they just sat or stood there with their jaws open!
“I remember once when we went to Merthyr Tydfil and he asked the audience for volunteers to tie him up and up stood two hefty sailors just off a ship who proceeded to tie Len’s frail body with some nasty knots and then stood back laughing at him trussed up like a turkey dinner.
“Len then spoke to his audience and stated that he liked to time how long it took him to free himself – and with that, he pulled out his arm to read his watch. Even the sailors were impressed.”
Well, as it happens, on July 29, 2016 I told in my Cardiff Remembered column how Len Lewis, of Penarth, had told me that he had been very interested in my article about Harry Houdini as, in the 1970s, he had been billed as Wales’ only escapologist.
Len, then 81, and who had been born in West Virginia, said he discovered he had been the only other act, apart from Houdini, to perform escapology at the Palladium.
Len recalled how years earlier he had appeared on the Donald Peers Presents TV Show on Radio Wales.
“I had to follow a young singer who was appearing on his first TV show, compliment him on his performance and then ask him to help me with my act by tying me up and chaining me, which he kindly did,”
He added: “His name was Tommy Scott of the Senators who now, of course, is Tom Jones.”
On two other occasions, Len had captive audiences with his acts in Dartmoor and Cardiff Prison!
■ Please send your stories and pictures to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, Six Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR or email brianlee4@ virginmedia.com – please include your phone number as I cannot reply by letter