Nothing Is Impossible: The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician (33 page)

I may have had a tough time growing up, but it’s nothing compared to the devastating poverty and violence that millions of people out there deal with on a daily basis. With a teenage mum and imprisoned dad, I may not have had your average family life, but I had love from my mum and grandparents, and I had food and a roof over my head.

Ukraine was eye-opening and gave me perhaps the first truly profound experience I’ve had while travelling. Ukraine has, or at least had, one of the highest rates of child poverty in the world. The poverty there has been described as chronic. It’s really serious.

I was flown over to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, by London nightclub promoter Nick House. A vodka company was putting
on a bar-flairing event. Bar flairing is where bar tenders entertain people by manipulating their bar tools, like juggling cocktail shakers – they are the magicians of the drinks industry, perhaps! It was sponsored by
Playboy
magazine and Nick had recommended that I go over and perform.

We landed and went straight to the gig, whizzing past the banks of the Dnipro River, lined with people eating and drinking, and the elaborate gold-domed architecture for which the city is renowned. We rolled up to a huge warehouse where I would be performing. On the surface, everything was lovely, we received a warm welcome and there were lots of bartenders doing their best ‘Tom Cruise in
Cocktail
’ impression. If you looked a little closer, though, there was a real edginess to it. There were a lot of Russian women who appeared to be pretty high, stumbling around, being helped to their feet by burly security guys. It started to feel a little weird and quite disturbing.

After the gig, we decided to explore Kiev a little bit. We’d been told about a nightclub that was supposed to be really cool, and the promoters offered to take us out and show us the nightlife. We left this one club at about 3a.m. It was in a part of town that felt quite rough and ready. There weren’t many people about and those that were seemed quite tense. We headed to the nearest taxi rank when all of a sudden we were surrounded by kids.

I was shocked. Not only was it run down, but also it was about three in the morning and there were kids everywhere. I don’t mean teenagers, but actual children, four and five years old. We were surrounded by children barely out of nappies, trying to sell us flowers, chewing gum and cigarettes. Their faces were filthy, their clothes in tatters, their trainers full of holes. I jolted with a shock as I realised that they lived on the street. They had no homes. They had no parents.

Ukraine gave me a truly profound experience

Can you imagine your daughter, nephew or grandchild at four years old being so poor that they would be out all night in the streets, trying to sell flowers for the equivalent of ten pence? Can you imagine the dangers – physically and psychologically – connected with that? It broke my heart to see those kids out there. Dan gave one of the children £5 and the kid couldn’t believe it; it was like he’d won the lottery. I did a piece of magic, making a coin appear from behind someone’s ear and they all went mad. But then every kid wanted a coin and I realised that had been a thoughtless idea. We had upset a natural balance and unwittingly created anger and resentment among the kids. If we couldn’t give something to everyone, we shouldn’t have given anything to anyone.

We had to leave pretty quickly before we caused a riot. It bothered me for a long time, not just hours or days after, but throughout the following months and even now I find myself thinking about that moment a lot.

Just an hour before, I’d been in a vast warehouse space where people were ordering five or ten bottles of champagne at £800 a pop. It makes me angry to think of the over-indulgence there when there was so little elsewhere. I just wonder that if the right people were in charge, then the money could be distributed better. Rather than super rich and super poor living alongside each other, there should be a middle ground. Kids shouldn’t live on the streets, full stop. I don’t care what rules or regulations exist, kids shouldn’t have to endure these conditions.

We were only there for a night really, but a shadow of the darkness in Kiev has been left with me. And I think that’s a good thing. It instilled a strong sense of morality in me. Seeing the huge divide between rich and poor in Kiev made me much more aware of the slightly more subtle divide in this country. I made a pact to myself there and then that no matter how rich or famous
I became, I’d never be ungrateful or wasteful of my success. It helped me put my own childhood in perspective and made me appreciate what I have.

In some ways, I’m glad that it took me a long time to finally make it. If all this had happened when I was eighteen, nineteen years old, maybe I would have turned into an ego-filled monster. I’d like to think that would never have happened, but who knows. Getting the chance to experience the bigger, wider world has provided me with many invaluable lessons that have undoubtedly made me a better person than I might otherwise have been.

THE ACHING GAP
between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ can be seen all over the world. From Kiev to Delph Hill, more often than not the gap between the two is out of proportion.

The problem with deprived areas, regardless of what part of the world they may be in, is the lack of opportunity. While Delph Hill kids might not have it as hard as kids in the Ukraine, both areas were similarly afflicted by a lack of inspiration. How often did those kids in Kiev get to see the five-star luxury fifteen minutes from their desperate lives? In one city or country, you have people existing in totally different worlds.

People in Delph Hill rarely leave the estate, let alone the city. They don’t really have big ambitions to get out. Because of that, there’s no one to look up to, there are no role models, so people don’t feel inspired to do anything. It would have been very easy for me to be one of those people trapped on the estate, ending up in prison or on the dole.

I wouldn’t change where I grew up at all. I think it has shaped who I am and made me appreciate everything I’ve been given so much more. If I wasn’t from Delph Hill, I don’t think I would have
valued going to a place like Clarence House as much. It made it even more special, knowing where I had come from. Even though I came from an estate, I got treated with respect. Prince Charles didn’t just have a polite conversation with me, he engaged with what I was saying. He really listened.

Growing up in Delph Hill, no one was there to listen to you. Everybody was trying to say something, but no one was actually listening. I think that’s why a lot of communities break down. It’s a struggle for power. Dog eat dog. You see it time and time again, that crabs-in-the-barrel mentality. A kid tries to leave the street to go to college – the gang pulls him back in. A vulnerable young girl with hopes and ambition ends up pregnant at fourteen years old. As soon as someone tries to break away, the people that are left behind become jealous and want to drag you back down. There are endemic issues in poor communities in the UK and around the world that need to be addressed.

A lot of people in a position of power went to grammar, boarding or public schools. Having been to a comprehensive, I can testify how difficult it is to achieve much when the school has a low pass average, poor attendance rates and high levels of antisocial behaviour. It feels like kids at your average comprehensive aren’t expected to do more than pass and leave – maybe you’ll go to college, maybe you won’t. If you do have aspirations to attend university, can you or your mum (and dad if you’re lucky enough to have both in your life) afford the rising fees? Maybe, if you’re in the top ten per cent of the exceptionally bright, you might win a scholarship. How about the kid whose intelligence is just above average? What happens to him?

I’m not saying that some jobs are better than others and everyone should strive to be a lawyer over a hairdresser – my mum is a brilliant hairdresser! I just wish there was more choice for young people to allow them to pursue something they are
passionate about – whatever that might be. They should be able to have the option of being a lawyer OR a hairdresser, whichever they care more about.

That’s why I admire people like Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith. They came from nothing, they were normal working-class kids and they’ve each built their own businesses and have focused on a career that truly motivated them. These men and women have had rejection after rejection, failure after failure, but they refused to give up.

It makes me feel like it doesn’t matter how many new magic ideas I come up with, I won’t be able to rest until I’ve made one special transformation happen. I want my magic to help others make their dreams come true even if it’s just in a small way.

I hope that what I do can inspire other people. I hope that I can show people that you can make something from nothing, whatever that might be. With hard work, determination and a little bit of good luck, you can defy the odds. You can break the cycle. I always say that luck is when preparation and hard work meets opportunity. I have been preparing for this moment for over fifteen years and at times I didn’t know if it was ever going to happen, but I kept on going. I’m not meant to be able to walk on water or fly through the air, but I do. I’d urge anyone else to truly believe they can do whatever they want to. Nothing is impossible.

If me – a kid from Bradford with no proper education – can do it, anyone can. When I was growing up, I didn’t really have people to look to for inspiration apart from the make-believe superheroes in films and Gramps, of course. But if somebody notices me, somebody real, who has broken out from the estate and succeeded, and I inspire that person (even if it’s just the one), then I will know in my heart that magic really does exist…

EPILOGUE

KEEPING THE MAGIC ALIVE

I’VE SAVED THIS
moment of my life until last because it is the single most real thing I have ever had to deal with. It stands apart from anything else and has changed my life forever. When Gramps, Kenneth Walsh, died aged eighty-four, magic became the only thing in life that I knew I could depend on. The one thing that would never leave me.