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The Piddingtons

Sydney and Lesley Piddington (Sydney (1918-1991); Lesley (1925-))

The Piddingtons were a husband and wife mentalism team who gave one of the most famous stage telepathy acts of modern times. Sydney Piddington was born in Australia in 1918. During World War II he served in an artillery regiment in Singapore. He was imprisoned in Changi Camp for four years. After his release from prisoner of war camp, he returned to Australia where he met and married radio-actress Lesley Pope in 1946. The couple worked up a telepathy act and became a successful show on 2UE in Sydney and 3K2 in Melbourne, followed by live stage shows.

In 1949 the couple went to England, where they appeared over eight weeks on BBC radio programs, which were a sensational success. The Piddingtons became a household name almost overnight. In one remarkable program, twenty million listeners waited with bated breath while Lesley Piddington, sequestered in the Tower of London, correctly stated the difficult test sentence "Be abandoned as the electricians said that they would have no current" relayed by Sydney telepathically from a BBC studio in Piccadilly, several miles away. The line had been chosen independently of the Piddingtons, and it was only revealed to Sydney when o ruled out by searching the Piddingtons. One by one each ingenious "explanation" of trickery was eliminated under conditions that precluded codes and confederates. Everyone had his pet theories about how it might be done, and part of the success of the shows was the challenge issued to the public by the Piddingtons: "You are the judge." Some psychical researchers (including Dr. S. G. Soal) objected to the shows, presumably on the ground that telepathy should be restricted to laboratory investigation. However, the Piddingtons made telepathy a topic of conversation throughout Britain, and years later there has been no revelation of trickery. Skeptics have not offered a viable explanation, other than a staged hoax by the BBC that could account for the Piddington's performance. However, following a discovery by Martin T Hart, an investigative freelance journalist from North London, the first book titled "Piddington's Secrets" was written detailing exactly how the couple manifested their illusions. The book publishes documentary evidence and information taken from witnesses who worked on the 1949/50 BBC broadcasts. An accompanying website was also set up in 2014. www.thepiddingtons.com.

Russell Brandon wrote a book about his former camp-mate and his wife and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research provided lengthy discussion of their work (vol. 35, pp. 83-85, 116-19, 187, 244-45, 316-18; vol. 42, p. 250).

In 2014, magician Penn Jillitte on the Radiolab show, broadcast in NYC, aired his views which offered several explanations for the illusions. Jillette explained how the illusion of choice was created in the Piddington's effects, and how magicians can replicate mind reading tricks in various ways.

Sources: Braddon, Russell. The Piddingtons. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1950. Radio National, Australia http://www.abc.net.au/rn/history/hindsight/stories/s98346.htm Radiolab, http://www.radiolab.org/theuglytruthyouwerewarned/

http://www.answers.com/topic/sydney-and-lesley-piddingtons

http://www.thepiddingtons.com/

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