Over the past four years, Saddleworth Voices have recorded almost 70 interviews to preserve fond memories and anecdotes of all things local.
With the support of Saddleworth Parish Council, Delph Community Association, Delph library, Saddleworth Museum, and the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe, the team of volunteers has created an oral record of our times, with the added advantage of capturing accent and dialect.
Copies of the recordings are currently available in Delph library, Saddleworth Museum, and at the NWSA.
Here, Martin Plant looks at the life of Jack Highton, born in Delph in 1931.
Jack Highton was born in Delph in 1931. At the age of seven he saw his first magician performing at Delph Methodist Church.
His life was changed when he discovered a magic tricks department in the basement of John Lewis in Manchester. At 14 years’ old he was given 15 shillings for a 15-minute Saturday performance, which was as much as he earned all week as an apprentice painter and decorator.
By the age of 18 he was performing card tricks for Sunday schools and birthday parties, all the time learning about the important value of presentation as much as the tricks themselves.
He was called up for national service at the age of 21 and on the first night in barracks he hypnotised one of his fellow conscripts and had him running round the parade ground.
After active service, Jack returned home to marry Irene and set up as a self-employed painter and decorator but by now was entertaining in working men’s clubs across the UK.
After being spotted by an agent, he began to perform in night clubs and then theatre venues and stages across Europe and the Middle East.
He shared a stage in Iceland with Stromboli, the fire eater, and elsewhere with the likes of Les Dawson and Matt Monroe – “both lovely men” – Bob Monkhouse, Little and Large, Iris Williams, Tom O’Connor, and Cleo Laine.
One of Jack’s tricks was setting fire to someone’s £10 note in a frying pan and tipping the ash on stage. Then he opened an envelope, inside of which there was a potato, which he cut in half and there was the ten pound note.
Unfortunately, Jack was followed on stage by Norman Wisdom in a white coat who did a somersault and ended up covered in ash!
Jack became a professional pickpocket. His act prompted the police to use him in demonstration shows in shopping centres across the country to warn people to be safe.
He performed once at Strangeways Jail in front of several hundred prisoners, and the Oldham Chronicle ran a headline “Local pickpocket goes to Jail.”
But accidents do happen! Performing a trick known as the Miser’s Dream – where he took coins from the audience, put them in a box which he threw in the air before showing the audience an empty box – he hit a chandelier which crashed onto the stage!
On another occasion he threw the box upwards but immediately fell down some stairs in front of the stage, only to jump to his feet and catch the box!
In Buxton Opera House, during his pickpocket act, he removed a man’s braces and the man’s trousers fell down, which was a great success with everyone watching.
Jack is a life member of Equity, a member of the British wing of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and a life member of the Order of the Magi. He is retired now but still does some charity performances in Saddleworth.
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