Roy Walton has passed away

[TerryTerrell]

According to Gareth Foreman‎ - FB The Magic Library - Roy Walton has passed away per Jerry Sadowitz post on Twitter. R.I.P.

[Bob Farmer]

Terrible, terrible news. He was and will be a legend. His work was groundbreaking and brilliant. I've spent many, many hours and days studying his tricks and taking them apart to see his thinking.

[AJM]

Very sad news indeed.

The last time I spoke to Mr Walton was I think around two years ago - we bumped into each other in the foyer at the Penn & Teller show in Glasgow.

A great loss.

Andrew

[Matthew Field]

Roy was an amazing magician, a brilliant creator, and a friend. I was unsuccessful in my quest to get him to record a video of his work, but fortunate to spend many hours in his company. My deepest condolences go out to his wife Jean and his lovely daughters.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Saddened to hear this. Sincere condolences to Roy's family and friends.

It is staggering to consider that, on Conjuring Archive, there are 639 references to Roy, in many cases as either the creator of a trick/routine, or of a variation of same. https://www.conjuringarchive.com/list/person/269

[Christopher1979]

What a sad day....

[Richard Kaufman]

Argh. Terrible news.

[Andy Nicholls]

I had a strange introduction to Roy’s magic. I bought an Abra magazine on my first ever visit to a magic shop in the 90s. There was an advert on the back for The Complete Walton, volumes 1 & 2 from Davenport’s. I sent off for them and learnt a lot of the tricks. The weird thing is, I didn’t own any other magic books or videos. I thought that the tricks were indicative of how difficult card magic was so I just practiced till I got pretty good at performing them. (I learned The Pass and Trigger before a lot of other sleights or methods). I then bought some more books and found that I hadn’t had the easiest of starts in card magic, but as I didn’t know any better I just stuck with it and came to love the books.
About 8 years later my wife organised a visit to a friend of hers working in Glasgow. A pilgrimage was planned to visit Roy! I emailed him to see if he would be in the shop and he confirmed he would. I left my wife and her friend to catch up and walked for about an hour and a half in the pouring rain to visit Roy. I had to put my copy of volume one down the back of my trousers, under my coat to keep it dry as I had no bag. Roy was the gentleman I heard he was and despite looking at me a little oddly when I retrieved my book for him to sign, spent a couple of hours talking about card magic and jazz music with me. I felt guilty that I was monopolising him but I think the other people working in the shop were used to it and waved off my apologies. I bought some books from the shop and left happy that I had met the man who played such an important part in my introduction to magic. There followed the odd email between us, which included helping him with crediting some effects (I have an extensive library of books now) but unfortunately not another meeting with him. I was sorry to hear of his passing today and pass on all of my condolences and thoughts to his family and friends.
Thanks for the magic Roy, you were a true gent and will be sadly missed.

[Paco Nagata]

The first time I had heard about Roy Walton was through his master piece "Oil And Queens."
I fell in love with this wonderful card trick, becoming one of my favourite and frequently performed card tricks. When I performed it for my wife she was so astonished that she grabbed the Queens and couldn't stop checking them.
I've never met Mr. Walton, but I would like to show here my gratitud for his wonderful and immortal contribution to the Art of Card Magic.
My condolences to his family and friends.

[Steve Bryant]

Bill Goodwin is currently performing a series of Walton tricks on his From the Library segment on the Magic Castle/AMA newsletter.

[Dave Le Fevre]

So sorry to read this sad news. Many years ago I met him once in his shop in Glasgow. It was an honour to meet him, and I said so. He was modest and courteous.

Many decades ago, I came up with a simple effect. Some years ago I mentioned it to a friend and he asked if he could publish it. He asked Peter Duffie to look through his book re crediting, and Peter said that Roy had come up with the same effect but had never published it. Some people are dismayed to find out that their idea isn't original. Whereas I was hugely flattered to find that Roy and I had had the same idea.

[performer]

At one time I used to visit Glasgow reasonably frequently on business and I happen to be from Glasgow anyway. Naturally I would visit Tam Shepherds. Not too many people even in the UK realise that Tam Shepherds is actually a retail outlet of Davenports. I would visit Roy there and he was always a real gentleman and very nice to me. I have always said that people who sell fun are miserable as sin and that is why magic dealers tend to be crotchety and grumpy. Roy was an exception to this rule. He would love to talk magic with magicians at one end of the shop then go to the other end and sell jokes and novelties to the public. He didn't seem to care if the magicians spent any money or not.

I think he had a slight aversion to professional magicians. I once asked him if he ever considered doing magic professionally and he shuddered with horror at the very idea. He said, "The professionals come in here and brag all the time and all they talk about are themselves"

I remember that he was very reluctant to do lectures and Howard Lyons of Toronto begged him repeatedly to come over to Canada and lecture here but got nowhere. Howard told me to nag Roy to do it whenever I visited Glasgow. However, I got the vibe that it wouldn't be a good idea to pressure him so I never did.

I do remember he was very principled. He said he wanted to visit me at the Glasgow Ideal Homes exhibition where I was selling svengali decks. I told him that I could get him complimentary tickets so he wouldn't have to pay admission. He was quite adamant in refusing saying, "I never accept free tickets to see a magician do their show no matter how well I know them. I insist on paying just like everyone else." I am not sure that what I was doing was a "show" and besides there were a ton of other events going on there besides me but he insisted on refusing complimentary tickets and he did indeed show up.

The last contact I had with him was in 2011 when he sent me an email saying that his daughters purchased my book, "The Lives of a Showman" for him as a gift (I think as a birthday gift) and that he enjoyed the book very much.

He was a very nice man and it did give me a bit of a jolt when I read here that he had passed away.

[Bob Farmer]

A wonderful tribute by Jerry Sadowitz:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/ ... t-of-hand/