After attending the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London, and briefly studying at the Andre Lhote Academie in Paris, he moved to St Ives, Cornwall.

[4] In the late 1960s, after moving to live in Ponsanooth near Falmouth, he rediscovered stage magic - something he had been taught as a boy by his father and grandfather - and wrote articles for The Linking Ring and The Budget magazines.

[6] This, presented with the help of friend Vernon Rose and the rest of the Shiels family, was a magic show that incorporated illusions such as the headless woman, the sub-trunk and the buzz-saw.

[citation needed] He was involved in a series of 'monster-raising' exploits in 1976, which gave him considerable media attention, particularly when he began 'invoking' the monsters with the aid of a coven of nude witches.

In 1977 he obtained photos claimed to be of the Loch Ness Monster which appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper.