for the first science fiction convention to be held in the north of England since 1954. Your collective enthusiasm has overwhelmed use for in taking this annual meeting away from the south we estimated an attendance of 50 - 60 and now find ourselves catering for twice that number! Let us hope that you are not cramped and that every one of you enjoys the weekend thoroughly for it just did not seem fair to clamp down on numbers and turn away keen and bubbling applicants.

Much can be written about Harrogate itself, what a beautiful inland spa town it is, about its history, its waters, and so forth, but this is not necessary. We have obtained colourful brochures for every convention member and we are experimenting by giving programme time to allowing you the opportunity to look round the town and see for yourselves.... do you wish to try your hand at miniature golf? To buy antiques? To take the waters? You'll have the chance. The brochure will help you to map out any route around the town and perhaps you'll use your convention pencil for note—making....?

There are several good restaurants in town but we have obtained full inclusive terms for all attendees residing at either the West Park or the Clarendon and arrangements can be made for any non—resident to take meals along with the bulk of the convention membership.

We have tried to select an entertaining and balanced programme of events, covering the amateur as well as the professional sides of the field. The actual programme will of course be adhered to as strictly as possible and we hope that both speakers,(contestants included!) and audience members will take their places promptly; timing is especially difficult this year because of the programme "spread" between the two hotels. Any time changes, etc., will be announced on the convention notice board, and you are invited to make use of this board for any notices of club meetings, etc., that you might wish to arrange.

As the "man on the spot," perhaps in more senses than one, I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all those hard workers who have made the convention the tremendous success we are sure it will be, and especial thanks are due to Norman Shorrock who has once again produced a first rate convention booklet at a moment's notice. Enjoy yourselves and our efforts will have been worth while.

Welcome, then, to Harrogate! Welcome Tom Boardman, our Guest of Honour, welcome Ron Ellik, our TAFF Delegate from Los Angeles, welcome our Continental delegates, welcome the professionals, welcome the amateurs, yes, welcome YOU!

-- Ron Bennett.

Some years back, there used to be a little secondhand bookshop in St. Ebbes, Oxford. It's gone now - they've got a couple of main roads and a flyover there instead - but I used to look in there regularly back in the early fifties. It was there I found what was only the second clothbound science fiction novel I ever bought. It was in perfect condition (which even at that time was more than could be said for me) and it cost only a shilling. Its title was "What Mad Universe", its author was Fredric Brown, and its publisher was T.V. Boardman & Co. Ltd. Tom Boardman was the first publisher to publish sf regularly as sf. He and Grayson and Grayson were in the field pitching before the boom of '53-'55 began. Grayson and Grayson always sound rather a phantom pair of gentlemen, twins, perpetually young old men dressed in grey; I have never discovered if they actually exist. There is no doubt that Tom Boardman actually exists, and to prove it, he has consented to be our Guest of Honour at this convention. That's a really splendid idea, for Tom is still in there pitching. Only this year we have seen a new venture from him if not from his publishing firm; he is editing the Mayflower Sci-Fi series, kicking off in fine style with Eric Frank Russell, Kurt Vonnegut, and Fred Pohl. Not only are the titles good, the series is the first in this country to carry non-representational covers, and three cheers for that, say I. We're all intelligent enough to buy a paperback because it is labelled Sci-Fi and not because it shows a picture of a robot bent on forcible matrimony with a toothsome teenager. You'll also know that the Boardman byline appears regularly in "Books and Bookman", a monthly journal always most hospitable to sf. Somehow I often catch myself tiptoeing past the articles on Angus Wilson and Iris Murdoch to find what Tom Boardman has to say about - well, about the twenty-fifth reissue of a van Vogt under a now title, or whatever it happens to be. Name me another newspaper or magazine in the country that keeps its readers so regularly and so well informed about the current sf (okay, okay, I meant except for the "Oxford Mail").