Monday 7th AprilMARY REED:We left about four on Monday morning, Keith and Jill dropping us off before going back to Julia's to kip. Although we didn't expect to see them next day, Keith and Jill called in to say hello, and repair the car. As Keith said, as we ate some Xmas cake, and the baby was cooed over by my sisters-in-law, 'Happy St. Veebelflitzer's Boxing Day'. They left about noon, and set off for Oxford again. THOMAS D. CLARESON: John Brunner confirmed his desire to come to the States when I had the good luck and pleasure of meeting him at the British Science Fiction Association, Ltd. meeting [ie. the convention] at Oxford over the Easter weekend.
Earlier, through the nicest Russian Christmas present I have ever received, I was given the opportunity to participate, in the Scottish Universities Conference in Victorian Studies at Strathclyde University, Glasgow; hearing of this, Brunner, as vice-chairman of the Oxford meeting, kindly invited me to attend that gala affair. Judith Merril flew in from Rochedale College, Toronto, as guest of honour; Professor I.F. Clarke (Voices Prophesying War) and Professor W.H.G. Armytage (Yesterday's Tomorrows) were featured speakers. But I will not try to describe the weekend, nor will I name names of British writers, because I will omit something or someone who contributed greatly to the success of the meeting and to my personal delight. On the whole, they were surprised that science fiction was receiving so much attention on the American academic scene, and they promised full cooperation with the Seminar. The pleasure of the meeting was not unmarred, however, for as you know, John Wyndham (John Harris) died on March 11. At Oxford one of my most intriguing conversations was with J.G. Ballard. At one point he suggested that 'realism'/ 'naturalism' was the nineteenth century reaction to the 'new world' of science, and that it has exhausted itself as a manner of literary expression. On the other hand, he suggested that SF might well prove to be the most valid expression of the twentieth century's reaction to science. ROY KETTLE: Greg and I drank a little more, investigated for one final time the peculiar smell which hung over Oxford like a stench, said goodbye to Fortey and each other, and left. I went back with Jennie Boak and Bob Rickard and after I was on my own, when we transferred to different trains, I kept seeing fans everywhere. This was my first experience of the post-con hallucination, and its intensity is some indication of the quality of the convention. I saw an awful lot of fans that day. Coventry was like a new place, almost unrecognizable. It had been a good Easter.
PETER WESTON: All in all this was one of the most successful of all British conventions, very professional, with microphones and tape-recorders and spotlights all over the place, partly due to Swedish TV who were filming proceedings. The 2001 backdrop to platform reflected the overall interest in *science fiction* as a serious subject to talk about, despite J.G. Ballard's experiences, and this was generally very rewarding. GREG PICKERSGILL (27 Sept 2024): It's amazing how much I remember of Galactic Fair. Of course I was young and all this was new and these were foundation memories, the kind that stay with you for ever like the names of all the other kids in my eleven-plus class. Things like meeting Gordon Johnson and Roger Marsh, both of whom I'd been corresponding with, both older than me by a good margin, and much more socialised. Gordon did have quite remarkable halitosis, not helped by constant pipe-smoking, but was obviously well-read and intelligent and showed up as a LoCcer in fanzines for many years afterwards. Roger was cheerful but a bit strange. There was a plan (Kettle and I) to steal the large poster of 2001 which was a stage backdrop - foiled by someone else coming into the hall at the crucial moment and implicitly shaming our potential bad behaviour. Was it Brunner?; he'd been a bit of a bete-noir throughout, very English, very supercilious, very engaged with himself, and rather unfortunately gave me a hostile feeling for him which had only abated by the 1990s, and I sometimes wonder if I was one of the last people he spoke to at the 1995 Worldcon.
Below is a listing of the original reports used in compiling this composite report, and others, with links
where available. Thanks are due to Greg Pickersgill for sourcing most of these.
and for those of you who speak German:
Some time after the con HEICON REPORT ZERO appeared, the first in support of Germany's bid to host the 1970 Worldcon. It included this:
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