The Parker Bros.

If I were to ask you who has been your greatest creative inspiration, who would spring to mind?

In my case, one might assume I’d list photographers of note, but no; my single greatest artistic influence was my father, who died 5-years-ago today.

Ray Parker Sr. was born in Wolverhampton, England, in 1929. From an early age — he made his debut as a puppeteer at 11 — he demonstrated a passion and talent for entertaining.

Joining the armed forces at eighteen, he began performing for his fellow soldiers, first in England and later touring East Africa. During this time, he developed an impersonation act, which led to theatre, television, and radio engagements.

He later added acting, clowning, mime, dance, ventriloquism, singing, standup comedy, and lip-sync to his repertoire. Regarding the latter, his always-in-demand Rawhide/Mule Train act was dangerous to watch. I helped him, at about 10 years old, splice together the medley, using reel to reel tape machines and tape-loop echo chamber for sound-effects. The original recording, transferred to Compact Cassette, then CD, and finally digital file, still had people falling out of their chairs 50-years on, during this side-splitting performance.

My earliest memories are of him performing with the comedy harmonica act, the Parker Brothers (none directly related).

We emigrated to Canada in 1965, arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia, 53-years-ago yesterday. I have Dad’s diary for that year, recording that he averaged 3 to 4 nights a week in English clubs (many run by labour associations) right up until a fortnight before we boarded the plane. His fee ranged between £4.00 and £8.00 (in 1965, the pound = around $3.00CA).

He soon established his reputation in Canada, performing in nightclubs, theatres and on television. For a while, my younger brother and sister joined me and Dad as the Clown Family — a slapstick comedy act playing everything from children’s Christmas parties to the big stage, including Variety Telethon benefits.

In my teens, I picked up the blues harmonica and we worked some of the same Vancouver nightclubs together — Dad emceed and did standup, while I stood in with some of the best bands on the west coast.

His “retirement” to Vancouver Island, in 1994, didn’t mean he actually stopped working.

I recall my first visit to Victoria, B.C.’s capital on southern Vancouver Island, exactly 50-years ago, in the summer of 1968. Dad was on the road, touring with a variety show — what ever happened to the variety show? — which included a hypnotist (Dad was also a registered clinical hypnotherapist), a magician, and rock band. I was living with the family of a friend at the time. He and I, both 16, travelled to the capital city to see the show, at the McPherson Theatre, I believe. We were put up in the grand old Hotel Douglas, which has recently arisen, renamed The Realto, from the iniquity it fell into over previous decades.

In his forties, Dad added magic to his routine, which he tailored to children and adults alike, depending on the venue. He could pull off a comedy-magic act a la Tommy Cooper (who famously died onstage), misdirecting with bumbling “mistakes” that left audiences agog when the illusion ended up all the more astonishing.

He confounded tables of tipsy nightclub patrons with traditional close-up card conjuring. It was always fun to take friends to the hottest clubs in Vancouver and casually mention that the guy doing the awesome table magic was my dad. He won multiple awards for his innovative illusions. The Victoria Magic Circle now presents an annual Ray Parker Unopened Deck Award “to the Club magician who performs the most creative card effect using a previously unopened deck of playing cards.”

Not one to rest on his laurels, Dad became a town crier in his sixties, travelling the world representing sponsor cities in international competitions. His name is engraved on the plaque beneath the town crier statue that greets cruise ship visitors to Victoria’s Ogden Point.

He was always in demand and “the most photographed entertainer” at the annual Victoria Beer Festival, an event he worked for the last time just months before his advanced cancer diagnosis.

At the celebration of life held in his memory, in September 2013, we were all reduced to tears by the “broken wand ceremony” performed by fellow members of The International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Spell Broken

As mentioned in my bio, I learned basic photography and darkroom skills from Dad as well. I made my very first photograph, a portrait of him, with his glass plate camera. He bought me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie, for my seventh birthday. Most importantly, he recognized that the weird hieroglyphs I scrawled on my toy cupboard door as a child were “mirror-writing,” a result of dyslexia. He spent countless hours tutoring this leftie so I might iɔniV ɒb obɿɒnoɘ⅃ ɘʞil ƨƨɘl ɘƚiɿw. He also taught me bricklaying, garden design, and carpentry — pursuits that bring me great satisfaction to this day.

After taking up photography commercially, I produced much of Dad’s promotional material. The gallery below features a few of those images.