F
ollowing the outbreak of war in September 1939, both Richard and his brother Dudley Vincent, volunteered for the Royal Marines and were called up for service early in 1940. Their training was done at the Royal Marine Reserve Depot at Lympstone, near Exmouth in Devon, where they were soon involved in entertainment as The Payne Brothers. In June 1940 they participated in a Farewell Concert on the occasion of their unit’s transferring to another area. A clever display of the Payne Brothers, who in private life perform under the title of ‘White Magic’ and are members of the Magic Circle. Objects just disappeared – that’s all I can say, and if I had a gold watch when the show started, well, I haven’t got it now: but try as they would, one trick they could not perform was that of disappearing off the parade ground without being spotted by the sergeant major! The war ended in 1945 and Richard, after demobilization from the Royal Marines, returned to his native Hinckley, to resume his occupation as a bookbinder with Pickering and Sons. However, the call of the boards was strong, and he decided to become a full-time professional entertainer. Arthur Kimbail, a Hinckley agent, secured him his first hypnotic engagement, at the Kings Hall, Stoke-onTrent, with Ted Heath and his Band, in 1946. In 1948, during the week of the 20th December, Richard appeared at the Chevrons Club, Dorset Square, London, during which he was filmed for Pathé Pictorial. Its subsequent screening during the next six months in some 800 cinemas throughout Britain provided some splendid publicity for his demonstration. (Interesting to note the Pathé newsreel can still be viewed) CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PATHE NEWSREEL: https:// youtu.be/T_WbX407eug
During April 1949 one of the most amusing and publicity garnering episodes in Richard’s career occurred. His local football team, Hinckley Athletic F.C., an amateur-professional club, had won only one game since January. Prior to their Easter Tuesday match with Bedworth Town in the Birmingham Combination League, Richard subjected seven of the Hinkley team to hypnosis, although they would not allow him to visit them in their dressing room. They lost 2-1, despite their supporters’ change of touchline cry from Come on the Paralytics to Just one more the hypnotics. Tremendous national publicity ensued, including a Giles Cartoon titled “The New Factor in Sport” in the Daily Express on the 21st April. Headlines such as “No Dream Win for Soccer Team” (Daily Mail). “The Hypnotised Soccer Team Did Not Win” (Daily Mirror), and “Hypnotist Sees His ‘Fluence Team Lose” (Daily Express) were all grist for the publicity mill.
The story was even picked up by a Russian sporting publication Sovietsky Sports, as according to a British United Press report in the News Chronicle on the 13th May: The crafty managers of the local club announced that the hypnotist, Richard Payne, would hypnotise the team. That day Richard arrived in the dressing room and before the game hypnotised the team and hypnotised the ball. The local team lost but it would not be wrong to assert that the hypnotism succeeded. The objective was achieved. The public was hypnotised and the organisers of the hypnotic game got their not small pile.
Q
uestions were raised in Parliament and a Private Member’s Bill to make illegal the demonstration of hypnotic phenomena for purposes of public entertainment was presented in the Commons in December 1951. It went before Parliament in 1952 and received the Royal Assent in August of that year. This gave the local authorities discretion to implement its recommendations. Soon afterwards, the London County Council banned such shows and other authorities followed suit. Faced with legislation against hypnotists, Richard Payne forsook hypnotism and HAUNTED MAGAZINE
became the flamboyant landlord of the Shakespeare Hotel in Horsedge Street in Oldham in Lancashire, in August 1953. On the 26th March 1954, the Oldham Evening Chronicle noted that Richard had been developing a completely new act, escapology, and that he had designed a water torture cell similar to that used by Houdini, who rated a photograph alongside Richard’s. But he also operated a hypnotherapy clinic in Union Street, Oldham, for a couple of years addition to being mine host at the Shakespeare The well-known and often controversial landlord of the Shakespeare Hotel left Oldham in 1963 to occupy a similar post at the Theatre and Concert Tavern in Ashtonunder-Lyne, almost opposite the Theatre Royal where he himself had topped the bill. Richard created a theatrical atmosphere by decorating the Tavern with photographs and mementoes of his theatrical days and for the next five years was a popular host while continuing to do some entertaining on the northern club circuit. Under his tutelage one of the taproom customers, Derrick Melia, a 42-year-old butcher of Dukinfield, undertook a milk-churn escape with equipment belonging to “Murray.”
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