The Piddingtons

[BodHod]

I've just read a book on the Piddingtons - an Australian couple who did very well in the UK and Australia in the late 1940s with a telepathy act. They didn't appear to make any overly outrageous claims, but simply said the audience should decide how they achieved their apparent feats of telepathy.

Does anybody know what happened to them or if any explanation of their talents was eventually given?

Cheers,
BodHod

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by BodHod

I've just read a book on the Piddingtons - an Australian couple who did very well in the UK and Australia in the late 1940s with a telepathy act. They didn't appear to make any overly outrageous claims, but simply said the audience should decide how they achieved their apparent feats of telepathy.

Does anybody know what happened to them or if any explanation of their talents was eventually given?

Cheers,
BodHod

From what I remember of their act on BBC Radio (and I admit this some 60+ years ago ) what they did was pretty much stage magic that could be (and is) replicated by any number of stage magicians. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw Banachek do some of them -- including identifying a random word in a book after a random page is selected by a member of the audience.

At the age I was listening I was properly amazed by their psychic feats. Now I know different,

When I last tried Googling them, I gathered that they just packed up, went to Australia and disappeared from the view of the general public. Possibly they had just made enough to retire on and decided that the did not want to play the game any more. Would that Uri Geller do likewise.

[Michael C]

You can buy the means to recreate one of their effects here..

Quote:

Eddie was fortunate to see a live performance by “The Amazing Piddingtons” and from notes made just after their performances and constant research over the past 50 years, he has pieced together the TRUE secrets of this amazing couple – secrets that he has kept to himself for all that time.

Now at last he is revealing the exact methods they used, starting with this amazing but very practical easy to do Psychometry routine.

[Night Walker]

Originally Posted by BodHod

Thanks for all your replies.

I've just read a book on the Piddingtons - an Australian couple who did very well in the UK and Australia in the late 1940s with a telepathy act. They didn't appear t make any overly outrageous claims, but simply said the audience should decide how they achieved their apparent feats of telepathy.

Does anybody know what happened to them or if any explanation of their talents was eventually given?

Cheers,
BodHod

The Sun-Herald (Sydney, NSW)
May 2, 1954

MR. and MRS. SYDNEY PIDDINGTON and their 9-month-old son, Mark, returned to Sydney yester- day in the Orion.

Said he: "Our telepathy act was packed away two years ago."

Said she: "Yes, I'm a housewife now. But I hate that word - housewives should get up in arms against it."

They have come back to their flat in Bellevue Hill, and they have come home to settle, they say.

source

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Michael C

You can buy the means to recreate one of their effects here..

Thanks for that. I was just working from memory as I took no notes at the time.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Night Walker

The Sun-Herald (Sydney, NSW)
May 2, 1954

MR. and MRS. SYDNEY PIDDINGTON and their 9-month-old son, Mark, returned to Sydney yester- day in the Orion.

Said he: "Our telepathy act was packed away two years ago."

Said she: "Yes, I'm a housewife now. But I hate that word - housewives should get up in arms against it."

They have come back to their flat in Bellevue Hill, and they have come home to settle, they say.

source

And thanks for that too. Much as I speculated. I left the UK in September 1952.

And thanks to BodHod for the OP. Any thread that demonstrates my memory is still working and fills in some of the holes, is a good thread.