Houdini

[melete@aol.com]

Stuart Castergine said:
>Except for the name, I believe you were right -- she did try for years to
>reach Harry, and once thought she succeeded when a medium gave the proper
>code, but the medium was found to have gotten the code illicitly. She
>eventually concluded that it couldn't be done. (I think -- again, I'm
>recalling old love-hounds threads on this subject).

Houdini's wife's name was Bess, and Kate said about the song that "I thought
it was both a very romantic and a very sad imagine because, by passing that
key, she is keeping him alive--she's actually giving him the key back to
life."  (Kerry Juby, _Kate Bush:  The Whole Story_.)

According to _They Went That-a-way_ by Malcolm Forbes "with" Jeff Bloch,
Houdini's appendix was injured when a college student wanted to test
Houdini's claim that he could withstand punches to his stomach and tried it
without giving Houdini time to prepare (this was a random meeting and not
during a show).  Houdini gave his last performance two days later without
satisfying the crowd's desire for failure, but afterwards he was very ill and
had an emergency appendectomy.  He died about 6 days later on Halloween.

I have heard that Bess actually did believe that Houdini had contacted her
but that she was a devout woman and was pressured by persons in her church to
recant the story.  I don't know whether that's true or not.  Makes you
wonder.

Angela