Telepathy or Trick ?
The Piddingtons. By Russell Braddon. (Werner Laurie. 8s. 6d.)
GENUINE telepathy or a grave-faced trick ? I have myself investi- gated the Piddingtons at close quarters and am little the nearer proof. During one of their broadcasts I was invited to make a short tour of London with Mrs. Piddington in a taxi-cab, while in the B.B.C.'s Piccadilly studio another independent judge picked out one of ten London theatrical shows written on-a blackboard. About Soho we went, round Trafalgar Square, up the Mall, to the Palace, back along Birdcage Walk. . . . We were, I judged, incommunicado. At Piccadilly Circus Mrs. Piddington (who had preserved a remarkable composure) wrote "Oklahoma! " on a piece of paper and pressed it shyly into my hand. And when we returned to the studio, lol "Oklahoma! " was right. Now, of course, it may be that this title was, say, fourth on the blackboard list, and that some ingenious code had been evolved • there ma), have been four street-barrows hastily mustered in evolved; or, the hand of the Guinness clock at Piccadilly• Circus may have been
put to four o'clock, or the officer commanding at Wellington Barracks may have served as accomplice and ordered out four Guardsmen to drill on the square. This solution would argue, however, some delicate diplomacy in arrangement ; and Mrs. Piddington anyway appeared to be enjoying the refreshing slumbers of youth, with her eyes closed, throughout. In later broadcasts she graduated from my taxi-cab to a diving-bell in the Staines reservoir and an aeroplane flying over Bristol with equal success.
Mr. Braddon, the manager of the charming Piddington act, does nothing much in The Piddingtons to solve the controversy. True, he scoffs heartily and good-humouredly at the disbelievers ; but he nowhere explicitly and flatly comes out with the claim, "This is telepathy and no trick." It was he, a fellow-prisoner-of-war with Mr. Piddington in the Changi camp at Singapore, who first worked out the telepathy act with him ; and ;n the circumstances perhaps he would not wish to lay claim to the status of an impartial seeker after truth. But to review the telepathy issue is to blow on somewhat cold ashes ; and a great part of Mr. Braddon's book concerns itself with Mr. Piddington's career as an Australian soldier In the Malayan campaign or as a prisoner-of-war in Japanese hands. The chapters here are written with a tough kind of humour: the captivity which Mr. Braddon shared with Mr. Piddington is drawn with excellent energy, and the book revives our admiration for the men who endured torture and starvation so long and with so salty a stoicism. Mr. Braddon goes on to post-war Australia, the meeting and marriage of the Piddingtons, and their joint adventurous career in front of microphones and audiences: he draws them (truthfully, by my own fleeting observation) as a young couple with their hearts in the right place and their heads firmly screwed on. Two facts emerge from the narrative which, taken jointly, might have a bearing on the telepathy controversy. Mr. Piddington was an amateur conjurer. Mrs. Piddington was a professional actress.
LIONEL HALE. LIONEL HALE.
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