Friday 30th MayCLARKE:I suppose I'm a typical Londoner. Never been inside St. Pauls, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Monument, etc. etc., and Friday night was my introduction to Victoria Coach Station. I'd never have thought they could have done things so smoothly without running on rails. Walt Willis' coach was due at 6.57 am. a coach duly arrived at 6.58. He wasn't on it. Or the next. Or the next. My heart was thudding painfully against my instep, and at 7.30 I was just thinking of giving up, when Something caused me to look outside the station yard, and there, towering over everything except the double-decker omnibuses, was the bhoy himself. WILLIS: Just to be awkward, my bus doesn't pull in where it's supposed to, but sneaks guiltily round the corner and deposits me in a side street, as if it was ashamed to let the other buses see what it was reduced to carrying. So I have to drag my suitcases along to the proper arrival platform, where Vince Clarke is patiently waiting. I catch sight of his head across a couple of acres of traffic and wave madly. He sees me and embarks on the perilous journey across. Every now and then I catch glimpses of him defying death under the wheels of some car, keeping his eyes averted from me in the way people do when they don't want to wear a fixed grin for several minutes. At last contact is established and we make for Victoria Station where I deposit the suitcase I won't be needing until the Convention. Just as we're moving away from the Left Luggage Office we notice the porter lift a woman's suitcase off the counter with the contemptuous ease of an Earthman on the moon and swing it stylishly onto the rack behind him all in one practised movement. The technique is graceful, but just a little ostentatious, so we pause for a moment to see how he gets on with my case, which is stuffed full of fanzines and prozines and is really pretty heavy. Tidal waves flooded three Irish coastal towns when I took it aboard the ship. The porter approaches it innocently, expecting just another few pounds of pyjamas and toothbrushes. He picks a spot on the shelf behind him, casually grabs the handle of the case, and goes into his act. The case grinds forward over the counter for about four inches, balances for one dreadful moment on the brink, and then plunges relentlessly downwards to embed the porter's foot in the floor. Satisfied, we resume our journey to Earls Court to meet James White who should have got in from Paris about half an hour ago. True enough, he is waiting for us at the Tube exit, sunburned and with a sort of travelled, worldly look about him, which on James you notice. Maybe it's the open-necked shirt and the white shoes. He throws his arms around Vince and kisses him on both cheeks. I glance round nervously to make sure Laney, wasn't looking and then pin an imaginary Legion of Honour ribbon on his chest and he starts to tell us about his adventures in Paris. I don't know where they're going to be published now that Incinerations has folded. We go and have something to eat at an Italian cafe, where I give James his water pistol which he had had me bring to London for him. He didn't want to have to take it with him to Paris because he thought he might have difficulty explaining it to the Customs Officials, who mightn't have heard of the feud between James and Chuck Harris. Next stop is the White Horse. Compared to last year the place is as lively as New Orleans fandom after the Nolacon. Nearly everyone has been to see a preview of "The Thing".
So far as I'm aware this is the first time a film distributor reached out to London fans and invited them along to the preview of a movie. Thirty years later a number of London fans, myself included, attended a preview of its 1982 remake. I wonder if anyone was at both?
ROBINSON:
Around 6 p.m. on Friday 30th May a rather wild looking figure loaded to the eyes with contraptions in bags, cases etc. staggered out of Paddington Station. It was yours truly, determined not to miss the pre-convention "doings" at the White Horse. Having safely climbed out from under the load of equipment I was carrying I left my digs with a case containing my camera, accessories and a pile of flashbulbs, and made towards the Underground - only to remember that I still had half a colour film in my camera that needed to be used up, so I walked. After "shooting up" Marble Arch, Piccadilly, and Trafalgar Square I staggered (literally) to the Underground and eventually arrived at Chancery Lane Station - this was an achievement as the last time I travelled on the tube I went wrong somewhere and spent much valuable time going around Inner Circle getting nowhere. With visions of the White Horse bar being crammed full of fans from all over the World I dragged my weary feet at a semi-gallop down Fetter Lane, skidded around into Norwich St. and came to a halt outside the entrance to the fan's Mecca, sometimes known as Temple's Bar. Preparing to fight my way through the milling throng of fantastic personalities who inhabit this infamous hostelry, I barged in through the swing door, just in time to fall over the empty space with which the bar was filled - Ghod I thought - they've been told I'm coming - eventually from the deep shadows in one corner I heard voices; making my way through the forest of chairs and tables that somehow kept getting right in front of my shins I discovered some real live fans; thinking back I'm a little hazy as to who was there but I definitely remember Mike Rosenblum and Alan Hunter. After introductions I was amazed to find a fan from my area there [probably Arthur Hillman], just goes to show that you never know where you'll meet fans; as a matter of fact, I believe one or two other provincial fans were "discovered" by clubs from their areas at the Con. After gorging myself on a pint and a cheese roll I found that all the Circleites had gone to see a preview of The Thing. This gave me ample opportunity to set my camera and as soon as I'd done so the door nearly flew off and the bar was invaded by fans and more fans. In fact it reminded me of that old movie gag where people start getting out of a taxi and still keep coming one after another till there is a crowd standing on the pavement. Anyway before you could say Fred Robinson the bar was jammed, in fact it was a pinch if any more could have got in. Incidentally I have a note here from London. Will the two neo-fen last seen on Friday night humping heavy suitcases in the general direction of Belfast kindly return the souvenir they borrowed as Bill Temple wants something to lean on. ERIC JONES: The NSFC [Nor'west Science Fiction Club, aka the Manchester group] delegation arrived in London at 1.35 pm on Friday May 30th, and after some D/F trouble on my part eventually located the Avondale Hotel. First stop after a wash and brush up was the Fantasy Book Centre at Stoke Newington.
Some more D/F occurred on the way, but blame Liverpool for that. The 'Fantasy' sells other books and Records, which goes to show that SF will not sell on its own yet. Les Flood bought copies of the first 'Checklist' from us which put us in good spirits for the 'White Horse', but on arriving there found it completely devoid of life. When they did arrive, we did quite a lot of business and also found a chap from Manchester who did not know that the club existed.... He was promptly enrolled. WILLIS: Bill Temple is showing everyone a newspaper clipping about the filming of his "Four Sided Triangle" and looking for sympathy because the book, which took Bill several years to write (it's the one he mentions in that letter I quoted in Burwell's SFDIGEST as having been twice destroyed in the war) has been rewritten for the screen in nine days - and by somebody else for a fat fee. With consummate tact, I seize the opportunity to tell him about a mistake I found in the book, where on one page the heroine didn't know who her parents were and on the next she was worrying about her grandmother having committed suicide. He ponders for a moment and then announces gravely "Racial memory." I am satisfied. We turn our attention to one Denis Gifford whose ceaseless effort to sell his production 'Space Patrol Handbook' was quite a feature of the Convention. He even persuaded the redoubtable Ted Tubb, prince of auctioneers, to accept a copy as part payment for a magazine he had bid for. But this night, flushed apparently with the success of having sold two copies in as many hours, he rashly tries Bill and me.
We have him go through the whole thing on the grounds that we don't want to buy a pig in a poke, and after some twenty minutes of wisecracks about the contents gravely explain that we don't need to buy one now cos we've read it. However we do, because Gifford turns out to be a Pogo fan from way back and we Pogo fans must stick together - especially when there's a chance of borrowing some old issues of "Pogo and Albert". CLARKE: I found myself being persuaded to buy a Space Patrol Handbook by one Denis Gifford, the author of same. I introduced him to several people. No good. He finally sold me one. I got my paltry revenge by pointing out that there was only one 'c' in 'vacuum' (p.5), and to use his own Plutonian on him, he gave me a 'hosk'. The Manchester boys were present in force, with a large poster advertising the MANCON to be held later this year All the 'o's in the notice were ringed Saturns; Eric Bentcliffe told me that they had already forestalled Walt by calling the 1953 Con the SUPERMANCON. I also collected a copy of the Manchester group's British 'zine Checklist, turning faintly green at the beautiful reproduction of small type therein.
Other out-of-town types present included the old S-F Service, now Milcross, boys, Les Johnson and Frank Milnes, Alan Hunter and his wife from Bournemouth, and several others whose faces were more familiar than their names. [Note: both the S-F Service and Milcross were an integral part of Liverpool fandom in their respective eras - see links below.]
It was about here that I began to wish everyone had a large label with their name on it ... it wouldn't be egoboo ... just convenience.
WILLIS: Other important personages have begun to appear, including Bert Campbell, looking as if someone had run a lawn-mower over him since last year, Fred Robinson, taking compromising flash-light photos of everyone including one of James White holding a pair of glasses and making a spectacle of himself, Dave Cohen lobbying for the Manchester Con, Alan Hunter, Peter Ridley, Norman Ashfield, Ron Buckmaster, Jim Ratigan and many others. But the most distinguished of them all is the great Ken Bulmer himself, editor of the almost legendary NIRVANA. He is accompanied by the remarkably attractive young lady with whom he has been sublimating his fan instincts [Ron Buckmaster's sister Pam, his future wife].
ROBINSON: Almost every fan you can think of (and I can't) was present that evening and the Londoners gave a demonstration of a game of great skill and cunning, not to say strength, that they have invented - called Order a Drink at the Bar. I'm told that the local champion is Ted Carnell whose favourite play is to scatter free copies of New Worlds around the tables and then while the Circleites rush to spill beer on them he dashes to the bar and orders. Another champion at this game is Bill Temple who employs a different system. He comes first, leaves last and stays doggedly at the bar at all times between. There is a hollow in the bar at the point where he stays which came about when Galaxy folded and there was a great depression in the bar; as a matter of fact a notice is to be erected over this end of the bar bearing the legend "Bill Temple wept here"! This has a link with a rather old convention custom when all the fans get together to bury the hatchet and cry into the beer. However, to continue, having frightened the life out of several fans with the flash gun (they'd evidently read Campbell's 'Chaos in Miniature' and remembering what he said about the appearance of the 'Shrink Ray' and about Welshmen, they put two and two together and fortified themselves with a couple of pints). I met Walt Willis and Vince Clarke again and Walt pointed out a tall character rather sheepishly holding a STRONG DRINK as James White. I had realised this already of course because of his Blanco expression. On enquiry James explained that he was holding it for someone but when I casually enquired about the Bulmer van he had to be forcibly restrained from swallowing it (the drink, not the van). I hear that the London Circle are thinking of erecting a plaque on the stairs with the inscription James White Drank Here or alternatively that the White Horse is to be renamed The Dark Horse. A word would not be amiss here about Lou Mordecai who is so very much more than a barman - a trade at which he is nevertheless very skilled. Lou has the angelic expression usually associated with Sunday school pastors. However, to hear some of his jokes would convince anyone that he is in reality a retired sailor. I'm told that Lou (who invariably smokes pungent cigars) while not spurning science-fiction, is wont to give one of his smiles and turn to Dostoyevsky.
And so the evening wore on, everyone was in high spirits, talk and the beer flowed freely over the whole field of stf, plans were made for the next two days, the Manchester group with an eye to business were flogging copies of the Checklist they are putting out, together with copies of ASTRONEER, their new fanzine. I took about eight or ten pics. All too soon the voice of Lou could be heard (barely) above the voices of fen discussing rain on Venus, Giant Spiders chasing innocent females and other such topics of intellectual controversy, calling that is was time - after switching out the lights several times Lou modified this request to one of "Come on you...!" and the preliminary session was over, at a time I suppose when the Stateside fen would just about be getting warmed up for some real fun. However the licensing laws being what they are and Anglo-fen being what they are they drifted slowly in ones and twos toward the tube and home. Here and there along the road, an odd (?) author or two could be seen standing in the gutter looking at the stars, and the stars passed along occasionally throwing an odd coin or second-hand-at-least-beer-stained -prozine their way. Going down the escalator an argument began as to whether if one was to walk the opposite way to the run of the stairs if one would ever reach the other end - the point of whether this knowledge even if obtained would be of any practical use never arose, which goes to prove how pure is the scientific outlook of the fan.
Eventually with promises of meeting on the morrow the late stragglers got lost into side tunnels and I found myself fighting my way onto a train that was, logic told me, going in the right direction. For anyone possessing latent ESP powers I know of no better means of proving the extent of these powers than to travel by London Tube. Feeling somewhat cramped and it being a fine night I decided to get off early and walk back to my digs part way. I feel sure Londoners must have been intrigued at the sight of squads of little men busily running along ahead of me moving Paddington a few miles further West, altering street signs etc. Late that night a tired, footsore and weary looking individual might have been seen staggering along a side street in Paddington breathing prayers that the water had not been turned off in the bathtub - fortunately it hadn't. WILLIS: At about half ten the party broke up and I set off with Vince on the long and complicated journey to his home. Everyone sympathised with me as if I were going to Devil's Island. No wonder - we probably passed it on the way. What a journey! At one time I reflected that at least my descendants would probably get to our destination, provided there was no mutiny among the mutants. It started off like a pageant of transport through the ages. First a tube train, then an ordinary train, then a bus - after that there were probably ferries, dog sleighs, sedan chairs and and mule trains, but I was too bewildered to notice. But after a few years subjective time we arrive, and to my amazement the people are still speaking English. After supper Vince shows me up to my room. Actually it was really his room. I don't know where he slept while I was there, and I never liked to ask in case it was on the mat outside the door: this room, you see, houses The Collection. It consists of a bed entirely surrounded by science fiction. The walls are concealed by shelves containing virtually complete files of several prozines - though not of ASF, the April 1943 issue being absent. I verified this carefully before I untied Vince and allowed him to show me the rest of the Collection. About 3am the more interesting items were exhausted and we went to bed likewise.
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