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Monday 27 AugustPETER ROBERTS: From the beach to breakfast, where an allegedly ex-partisan waiter yelled "Viva Zapata!" at me when I ordered eggs. Curious. Anyway, what with one thing or another the fan programme disintegrated on Monday morning. No one seemed hugely interested in the final panel and when I found the amplifier still connected to the music system rather than the mike, I called it a day. No one seemed upset, so I suppose all was still going well.
Certainly the fan room was as packed as ever – the bar had been drunk effectively dry several times (and there were at least five others in the Metropole – all open) and the games machines had taken vast sums of money, as had the sales desk (with its mounds of fanzines, t-shirts, buttons, and balloons). As a centre for meeting, chatting, sitting, or just wandering around it had proved entirely successful. TERRY CARR: Monday began late for me again, so my breakfast with Peter Nicholls was really lunch. After that it was back to the Metropole for a panel on which I appeared with Bob Sheckley and R. A. Lafferty, with Ian Watson moderating; our title was "Madness and Metaphysics," which Malcolm Edwards had told me was really Just an excuse to put four somewhat individualistic writers on the dais and find out what we'd say. I didn't feel that this panel ever really got off the ground, due partly to the fact that none of us seemed able to get a good handle on the subject, nor could we get much interplay going between us because the p.a. system, which perhaps had been altered for the Hugo ceremony the night before, made it difficult for people on the dais to hear each other (though the audience could hear us well enough). Lafferty in particular seemed to be saying interesting things, but he was at the other end of the speakers' table and I couldn't make out more than every third word; Watson was a little closer to me, so I heard every second word from him, barely enough to enable me to answer his questions with remarks that were somewhat close to the subject. In any case, the "Madness and Metaphysics” panel evidently wasn’t a total success, because Bob Silverberg, who’d been in the audience and thus had heard all of it, came up to me afterward and said, "You know, that panel had great potential..." "Little of which was realized," I finished for him, and he nodded. After that panel I was swamped by people looking for autographs - no doubt a result of my aborted autograph session the day before. I led them into the next room, where a bar and refreshment stand was set up, arid signed my name a lot, noticing that here at the end of a five-day convention my signature was becoming noticeably less recognizable.
I went back into the main hall to listen to the "Future of SF" panel, which featured Joe Haldeman, Jack Chalker, Norman Spinrad and Bob Silverberg. I found it very interesting, largely because they were talking about the recent spate of "illustrated novels" and such as an indication of the illiteracy that’s taking over the world, so I stayed for the duration. Chalker had some particularly good comments on this, though they were slightly undermined by his own shaky grammar.
Immediately following this was the Closing Ceremony, with chairman Peter Weston groaning that fans were already suggesting "Britain is fine in '89", "Britain in great in '88", and "Britain for more in '84". No one appears to have had the prescience to call for '87. However, though the Closing Ceremony was listed in the programme it had received a lot less attention than the Opening Ceremony.... JUDITH MORTIMORE: On the last day of the convention, I came upon Pete Weston and John Brunner sat on the balcony - I can't remember what was on at the time. "What are we doing for the closing ceremony?" John wondered. Pete looked a bit confused. "Um - I haven't thought about that ..." So between them they came up with what happened. Pete stood on the platform and said he hoped everyone had enjoyed the practice run, but now the real convention was about to start. Unfortunately the rehearsal had used a lot of the budget, so things would have to be done much cheaper. Filthy Pierre marched up the aisle (replacing the Scots Guards) and I wandered up in T-shirt and jeans, still wearing the bathing belle cap (I actually still have the thing).
Having got onto the stage, I couldn't figure out how to get off and slumped into a chair at the rear, trying to look invisible. Peter was explaining the films had been returned and we only had - I can't remember exactly but it may well have been something like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ... after the laughter had died down he got serious, and from where I was sitting, I could clearly see the tears pouring down his face. Which I don't think anybody else did. It was a moment. We'd done it, we'd held a Worldcon - all of us - and it was brilliant.
And with that Seacon '79 was officially over. All that remained now was more partying. PETER WESTON: The Gopher Party. The concept of gophers was something Rob [Jackson] and I had brought back from Suncon, and at Seacon '79 it took on a life of its own. We ended-up with a whole army of volunteers, fans who would willingly run all over the place with messages, helping with set-ups and doing all those other chores, and the Party on Monday evening was our way of thanking them.
Once again, Rob and I went out to buy drink, with a big wad of money in my pocket and empty suitcases in the back of the car. As we hurtled through the back streets of Brighton I had a moment of deja vu; "I think we've done this before, Rob," I said. Unfortunately, this was Brighton, not Florida, it was lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday, and all the shops were shut. Finally, we spotted a street corner off-licence and hastily parked. We went into the shop and I put £300 on the counter [almost £2000 in 2025 money]. "We want to buy beer," I said, "A lot of beer." The shop-girl looked at all that money, which was probably going to represent the biggest sale she had ever made, and responded in classic British manner. "But we're closing in ten minutes," she said, in desperate hope that we would go away and trouble someone else. Arriving back at the hotel's loading bay, we were met by Martin Hoare with his walkie-talkie, who briskly called our uniformed security men. They moved like clockwork, opening up the goods entrance and whisking our booze away to a safe hiding-place until the evening. Then, just before midnight, we took it all down to the basement room we were using for the party.
"We'll build a Tower of Beer-cans to the Moon," I said, "it's an old fannish tradition." The fans started to stack the tins into a giant pyramid and I seized a Magic Marker and wrote out instructions on a piece of cardboard: "Tower of Beer-cans to the Moon-A concept originated by Terry Carr and the Berkeley boys in the early 1960s, and recently revived by Arthur C. Clarke and Charles Sheffield. Object of the exercise is to take full beer-can from top of tower, dispose of contents in some way, and neatly stack can to form a cosmic funicular tower on the other side of the room."
The gophers set to their task with great enthusiasm. We knurdled, we had the Astral pole, and Kathy Sanders gave us her full belly-dancing routine. Many of the Big Names came down to join in; Brian and Margaret Aldiss, resplendent in evening dress, Fritz Leiber, Bob Shaw, Theodore Sturgeon, and most of the committee. Halfway through we were raided by 'hotel security' in the form of a squad of 'Imperial Stormtroopers,' in full Star Wars kit, courtesy of Craig Miller.
KEV WILLIAMS: Everyone had an extremely jolly time and utter drunkenness was widespread. One of the widespreads that was utterly drunk (apart from my good self) was a certain Fan Guest of Honour, who was last seen settling down for a comfortable sleep cuddling a metal floor ashtray as a pillow.
I'd like to thank all those gophers who really helped out - they know who they are - the caucus of the Gopher Liberation Front, an organisation which sprang up out of Seacon.
PETER WESTON: It was a great party and eventually I left them to it, the Tower by this time half constructed. From the evidence next morning, some sturdy souls stayed awake until the job had been finished!
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