Paul Daniels on his first tricks, dentists and Debbie McGee Archivist I'm archiving all my old footage, copying my TV shows on to DVDs. Two days ago I watched one of my very first TV shows and saw that I performed a trick I used to do in the youth club magic show. Wind-up We were mooching around the antiques shops in Harrogate when Debbie said, 'I've seen something, I'm sure it's to do with magic. It was this French automaton (pictured below). I did the deal and we brought him home and every now and then we wind him up and make sure he's still working. Photos: Martin Usborne Dentists When I was three I fell down the steps in my dad's cinema - he was a projectionist - and my two front teeth were pushed outwards and broke off. I went to the dentist every week from the age of three to 10. My mother, Nancy, is 96. She says the best thing was having all her teeth taken out in her early 30s. It was normal in those days. Career When I left school, in Middlesbrough, nobody considered a career in the arts, so I became a local government clerk. Years later I took up magic professionally, playing at the summer shows, but unless you're the headliner you don't make a lot of money. Props I make some of my props in my shed at home (others, of course, I buy). My dad, Handel Newton Daniels - no longer with us - used to make them all, and my brother, Trevor, still helps out. I've always liked to make my own effects to make sure they're different from everyone else's. Accident I was using the saw on New Year's Day this year making, ironically, a finger guard, when the piece of wood snapped and my fingers went through the saw instead. It cut off the tip of my index finger, missed the middle one and slashed through the third. I was there on my own so I found the bits of finger, strapped my arm to my chest and drove myself to hospital. They managed to reattach the first one, but the third one was ground up completely. Rabbits I've had rabbits for years and they've always been part of the show. We've got two at the moment: one is called Gil (main picture), who is named after a friend of ours, Gil Leaney, who was a magical adviser but has passed away; the other one was born about the same time as Beckham's baby, so we called her Hopper Seven. They've both done the rabbit-in-a-hat routine. Old magic I went to the Edinburgh Fringe nine years ago and I decided to do a reconstruction of Max Malini's show - he was the magician's magician who started performing about 100 years ago. The only person I could find alive who knew him lived in Australia, so Debbie and I went to Australia and I practised the voice until she said, 'That's it. Malini performed only in salons, so I put the show on in a stately home. I loved it, and I thought, who else can I do? Charles Dickens used to do a magic show for deprived kids at Christmas, so I'm working on a show about him at the moment. Boat I love my boat (pictured below). It's a Frolic 21 and it's so easy to handle that even Debbie can take it out by herself. If we go to our neighbours," who live down the river, for dinner, we'll take the boat. It annoys me when pleasure boats come down here too fast - it ruins the banks. Useless knowledge Debbie won't sit next to me if Eggheads is on the telly because when I hear one fact then I'm off - I start reeling off all the other related facts I know. But you never know when you might need it. It comes in handy onstage when I'm talking to the audience. Feedback Some people never forget a show. I've had letters from people who've said, 'We were going to separate, but then we went to your show and found we could still laugh with each other, so you've brought us back together. Debbie Debbie was a ballet dancer with the Iranian National Ballet, but when the Ayatollah came to power he closed down all forms of entertainment. She was trapped in Iran, and although she escaped and got back to England, she had to leave all her clothes, jewellery and money. So 33 years ago she was broke and auditioning for the summer season at the seaside. When she was picked for my show she rang her friend and said, 'I've got a job, but I don't know who he is. The friend told her that I was a magician. Debbie said, 'Oh no, I can't stand magicians. First impressions I first saw her sitting on a wall outside a rehearsal room and she looked like a perfect little creature from the pages of Playboy, which I only bought for the motor car reviews, of course. Two years later she auditioned for the role as my assistant on the television show - the producer didn't know we were going out for dinners when he cast her. We got married in 1988 and next year is our silver wedding anniversary. It's been a good run. Blog If something upsets me, I'll have a little rant on my blog. When we were on holiday in Barbados a tabloid ran a picture of Debbie in a bikini, but they had airbrushed her to make her look fat. In response I posted a picture of her in her bikini from the same holiday on my blog to show that it was ridiculous. She's the same age as Madonna and looks a lot better. Clocks Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, who lived in the late-1800s, is known as the father of modern magic - Houdini took his name from him. But before he got into magic he was a clockmaker, which of course would have seemed like a kind of magic at the time. I have some of his clocks (pictured above) and I just think they are so beautiful. Video clips Debbie and I tend to watch YouTube videos instead of television before we go to bed. We type in something like 'one-legged-tap-dancer" - you've never done that, have you? There are several. Or chicken jugglers or a one-legged ballet dancer from China - her balance is extraordinary.