Now, that's MAG 1C

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At 18, he was called for National Service and was sent to Hong Kong on active duty where he spent part of his time entertaining the British and American servicemen. After demobilisation, Paul decided to leave his secure Civil Service post to manage his parents grocery business. “It was so successful that I was soon able to buy my own shop. But it meant that I was working harder than ever. In the evenings I was entertaining with my magic act in working men's clubs. I had a gruelling schedule of up to three 45-minute slots every night.”

It was while in one of these clubs in Bradford, that Paul's most famous catchphrase 'You'll like it, not a lot, but you'll like it,' came about. “A man called out to me 'I don't like your suit,' so I replied, 'Oh, well I like yours, not a lot, but I like it.' It became the hook for what we call a running gag. I'd go back to same man every now and again throughout the show and say, 'you'll like this, not a lot, but you'll like it.' I was known all over the north of England for saying this long before I became famous.”

Paul developed his showman's patter according to comments his audiences made. “I'd stay in the toilets after the shows to listen to what people didn't like about my performance. I even got my girlfriends at the time to do the same. I treated my performances very much as a business.”

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