Eager to be believed by his son, my father gave a detailed account of this curious spectacle, describing how the sword-point could clearly be seen depressing the man’s flesh before successfully puncturing and penetrating his side. On completing its course right through the body, the horrified audience would then, with similar clarity, see the skin distend and ‘peak’ before the bloodied sword-point broke through. At this point, the St John Ambulance Brigade sprang into action attending to and carrying out the dozens of men and women overcome by the gory scene.
Children of my age at that time were – perhaps still are – accustomed to good-natured leg-pulling by their dads and uncles, so it was hardly surprising that I suspected dad’s story to be a rather tall one. I distinctly remember though how his voice almost pleaded to be believed, how earnestly he recounted his memory of that evening back in the forties at the Hackney Empire, and in such detail. I recall assuring my father, at length, that, yes, I believed him, but dad knew that I didn’t. I couldn’t.
In the many years that followed my father never missed an opportunity to remind me of the Dutchman and to seek my faith in his word. In an effort to put us both out of our misery, I suggested that he write to the Daily Mirror’s ‘Live Letters’, supposedly edited by the all-knowing ‘ Old Codgers’. Of course, the ‘old pair’ was almost certainly a semi-retired journalist or suchlike with access to archive material; whatever, the Old Codgers were rather good at researching and answering readers’ queries so Dad did as I asked and confidently awaited publication of his letter and the all-important reply.
After a month of disappointment, Dad wrote again and eventually received a reply stating that ‘the old pair’ had investigated the matter but had found no record of the Dutch Swordsman. They did, however, go on to say that illusionists and tricksters had been very popular in the thirties and forties and that Dad had almost certainly witnessed one of their acts. As I remember, their closing lines were mildly unkind, a form of words implying that Dad, perhaps, was a bit gullible.
Dad’s reaction was one of frustration rather than offence, and he redoubled his assertion that what he and hundreds of others had seen on stage in Hackney had been absolutely genuine.
In the great plan of things though, the matter was of little import and quickly buried itself in the brain-cells marked ‘pending’. It re-emerged occasionally, usually at dad’s behest, but the matter was all but forgotten in the passage of time.
One particularly windy Sunday in the Autumn of 1989, now aged 36 and with Dad gone, I made my way to a lake close to my Essex home for a spot of fishing. So powerful were the gusts, I dared not attempt using my umbrella as a windbreak for fear of it being whisked away or, worse, ripped to shreds. Instead, I chose to fish from the base of a high bank which afforded just a little shelter; nonetheless, I was still very much exposed to the elements and had great difficulty controlling my rod and line. To alleviate this problem, I changed from float to leger. With the rod now reasonably secure in the V-shaped rests and with both hands free, I was able to concentrate on the serious art of coffee-drinking.
Turning into the wind to reach my rucksack, I was greeted by the 50 mph thwack of newspaper against my chest and neck where it ‘stuck’ until I’d extricated my vacuum flask. I could so easily have returned it to the winds with a flick of the fingers but, naturally litter-conscious, I chose to retain the stapled sheets and tucked them, folded , into my jacket pocket. I thought nothing more of my acquisition until I got home much later that afternoon and set about returning my gear to its home in the shed. Part of this ritual involved emptying my pockets of the bits and pieces I’d accumulated during the course of the day and I came across the A.4 pages and opened them out on the workbench.
Incredibly, the wind-borne magazine pages which had randomly terminated their journey stuck fast against my person contained a two-page account of an eccentric Dutchman, Mirim Dajo, who appeared at the Hackney Empire in 1947. It told of the audience’s shock and horror on seeing the bearded, wiry Nederlander remove his coat to reveal holes in his sides, back and stomach from previous demonstrations, then to have an assistant skewer him afresh from back to front. The accompanying photographs clearly show Dajo’s flesh, just below his right-side ribs, tenting alarmingly with the sword-point on the verge of breakthrough, exactly as dad had said!
The photo’s from the wind-borne newspaper pages
What were the chances of that!? To cap it all, a letter from a Mrs D.Griffith of Shavington, Cheshire, appeared in the Daily Mirror’s ‘Live Letters’ just a few months later, asking the ‘Old Pair’ if they could confirm her husband’s story of the Dutch Swordsman. On this occasion, they were able to ratify everything her spouse had described, with particular emphasis on the blood!
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFoctXxfs_A
