A magician who tricked her way into the Magic Circle is finally being granted membership – 34 years after she was kicked out.

Sophie Lloyd says she disguised herself as a man to fool examiners into letting her join the elite society in 1991, at a time female magicians were not allowed to be members.

When the Circle announced it was permitting women to join later that year, Ms Lloyd revealed her deception, prompting the society to expel her at the very same meeting it admitted its first female magicians.

Following a public search to find her, the Circle has now apologised to Ms Lloyd and is presenting her with a membership certificate on Thursday evening.

“I’m beyond thrilled,” Ms Lloyd told Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday.

In the late 1980s, Ms Lloyd was studying at a school of mime in London where she befriended magician Jenny Winstanley.

“Jenny was increasingly frustrated that women, including herself, could not join the Magic Circle,” Ms Lloyd said. “So she came up with an idea to infiltrate the society by having me dress as a man. She couldn’t do it herself as she was too recognisable.”

It was a colossal undertaking. Ms Lloyd had worked as Miss Winstanley’s assistant at gigs but hadn’t performed magic on her own, so had to learn.

She invented a new identity – Raymond Lloyd – and spent about two years studying the character. She disguised herself with a wig, body suit and “croaky” voice. She wore gloves to hide her feminine hands.

There was nothing she could do about her height – 5ft 2in (1.57m) – so instead she styled Raymond as a “young-looking, 18-year-old,” with some facial “fluff”, she told Canadian broadcaster CBC in 1991.

Ms Lloyd told the Today programme that her character was “totally believed.” She had no problems wearing the body suit, but the gloves made it “very hard” to do sleight of hand tricks, she said.

By March 1991, Ms Lloyd was ready to have her skills put to the test. Rather than being scrutinised at the Magic Circle’s headquarters – which Ms Lloyd and Miss Winstanley deemed too risky – Ms Lloyd opted to invite the society’s examiners to a 20-minute performance at a working men’s club in front of 200 spectators. To cover up her voice, Ms Lloyd said Raymond had laryngitis.

Ms Lloyd even stayed for a drink with one of the examiners after the show.

A week later, Ms Lloyd was told she had been granted membership to the Circle.

For months, Raymond Lloyd performed magic and even socialised with other Magic Circle members.

When Ms Lloyd and Miss Winstanley later heard the society was going to begin accepting female magicians as members, they decided to come clean about their deception and Miss Winstanley told the society about it over the phone.

But the Magic Circle did not take kindly to the news. The duo got a letter saying that Raymond had been expelled, and in October 1991, at the first meeting accepting women into the society, Ms Lloyd was kicked out.

“We couldn’t get our heads round it,” Ms Lloyd said.

Ms Lloyd spent about 10 years performing across the country as a magician, including performing anti-bullying shows, before she moved to Spain, where she took early retirement and has been involved in animal rescue work. Miss Winstanley went on to run a pottery firm in Norfolk, before she died in a car crash in 2004.

The Magic Circle started a search for Ms Lloyd last year.

“I felt it important that the Magic Circle should be able to recognise Sophie as the role model for women magicians, as well as show that we are now a completely open society,” said Laura London, the society’s first female chair.

Ms Lloyd only found out about the search for her when her sister sent her a link to an interview. Initially reluctant to join the society because of the amount of time that had passed, she eventually decided to do it to honour Miss Winstanley’s legacy.

Today, the Magic Circle is still heavily male-dominated. The society has around 1,700 members, of which 5% are women.

Ms Lloyd will receive her new membership certificate at an event at the Circle’s London headquarters on Thursday evening, which will feature performances by five magicians and be attended by both members of the society and the general public. The society says Miss Winstanley will also be recognised at the event.

“This is for Jenny, really,” Ms Lloyd said. “I just think Jenny would have loved it.”

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