Saturday 5th AprilSID BIRCHBY:I hear that when [Burgess] arrives at 4am. his first action is to chase one of the girls along the passage, but I can hardly believe that. Who can have so much energy? When I breakfast with him at 9am., he is perfectly fit and talking chiefly about having had trouble with a Jaguar's big end.
We are last in for the meal, and I notice with alarm that there are no other fen in sight. Have they all left during the night, hitch-hiking slowly, perhaps, towards Scotland? I realise how the Clacton boys feel on Thursday and hurry down the street to search for someone. Happily, after several awkward situations due to grinning at total strangers, I use my intuition and make for the local Post Office. It is, as I hope, full of fen milling brightly about, buying stamps for the despatch of fannish mail.
"This," says Dave Newman, "will be the first time I've been thrown out of a Post Office"....as everyone changes their mind and decides to buy stamps at the hotel instead. Norman Shorrock is carrying an enormous curly balloon, four feet long; "What's this for?" I ask, touching it. BARRY HALL: "You like it?" he replies. "It's yours". And they all move off, pretending not to know me, and leave me trapped among strangers in the main street, clutching the damn thing, and whimpering. My friends. A long time later, I scuttle off the streets into a small untidy bookshop crammed with old magazines and fans. This is the collector's shop, new to me since I have not been to Kettering before, but a major attraction for those who have. Between conventions, a fair amount of s-f accumulates here, and in one weekend the fannish locusts descend and raid the lot. Everyone seems to be here. Who says we no longer read s-f ? John Roles finds a book of Victorian poems titled 'The Works of Willis', including one on the 'Death of Harrison'. This is at once snapped up and enriched with suitable quotations. Proxyboo Ltd has been busy. ROBERTA WILD: Saturday, after breakfast, Ella wanted to see the town and it wasn't until we were halfway up the street that I blithely informed her that this was only my second time in Kettering and that I hadn't the slightest idea of the geography of the place. After that, she looked round rather grimly for likely places for tea. So intent was she on this search that she absent-mindedly stepped in front of a vehicle that came out of a side road. Fortunately, I saw it and hauled her back to the kerb - she'd said that she'd pay for the tea and I wasn't going to let her take such drastic steps to get out of her promise. The vehicle turned out to be a hearse - of all things! - but although it was empty of cadavers, the driver looked so mournful you'd have thought there were half a dozen bodies in the back. Maybe he was just driving round practising or maybe some peace loving citizen had heard about the Con and had hired him to winnow the ranks of fandom. On our return to the hotel who should be sitting on a chair outside the main lounge but Harris himself! He had already written to say that it was unlikely he would be at the Con, but when he found out that Vince Clarke would not be there, he had come up so that he could write the Conrep for HYPHEN himself, "Come and eat" were his first words and Ella withdrew before I could tell her it was customary for fans to form up in crowds and take eateries by storm. A dozen of us set forth eventually including Paul Hammett and his wife - and I must say that Paul talked far more sensibly about the horrors of the H-bomb than did the pugnacious pacifists who marched to Aldermaston and tried to overturn a car (with the occupants inside) because the people in it disagreed with their views.
Back to the hotel and the peripatetic way that is so much a part of a Con. I recall being in some room for awhile - I think it was Ted Tubb's - with some fen. John Roles and I discussed OMPA while absent-mindedly drinking from the glasses that were thrust into our hands. Ted Tubb was trying to persuade Norman Wansborough that he had started a marriage bureau and was offering to find Norman a wife for a small fee, "You know the sort of thing Norman. Young country gentleman seeks wife with similar tastes," He also offered NGW a drink which he assured him was quite innocuous, but had all sorts of mysterious ingredients in it with the result that Norman, who doesn't drink anything stronger than cider, was quite ill later on. Eventually most of the fans gathered in the main lounge, prior to adjourning to the Basket Lounge, where the party was to be held. Throughout the day John Roles and Ina Shorrock had been collecting money from the sale of raffle tickets for TAFF that I had brought with me and they were still doing a brisk sale with them. It was originally intended that the draw for the cover paintings should be held at the Saturday night party, but those fans who were there will no doubt realise why it slipped my mind. There were several tapes to be played - mainly jazz and much too much of Elvis Presley. I was sitting with Harris (he had a bottle of Scotch), as it was getting low, we were getting high. Paul offered his last cigar to Phil Rogers, who had already appropriated Joan Hammett. "You've taken my wife, you've taken my last cigar - there's a bottle of liquor in my room, would you like that too?" asked Paul. "What's the number of your room?" asked Phil, immediately losing interest in Joan and the cigar.
BARRY HALL: After dinner out at the Gaumont theatre, all fen collected in the Billiards room where a party had been scheduled. It was soon after this that fandom and the Con really began to go with a swing. Amidst flashing camera bulbs, Eric Jones tape-recorder playing back a mixture of Jazz and Goon music, dancing and jiving, people shooting each other with starting pistols and Brian Burgess asleep in the corner, I remember drinking one of Dave Newman's special brews of potent quality. The next thing I remember is being interviewed by Eric Jones for a tape the Cheltenham group were preparing. With my aesophagus still twitching from Dave's fiendish brew, and someone shouting "Rubbish!" at the top of his voice into my ear, I bravely tried to make sense for Eric. Thank Ghod I didn't hear the play-back.
After a guitar session with Sandy Sandfield, we returned to the Billiard room only to find it decimated of fen. On enquiring we were told that the fabulous room parties had already started, whereupon Bryan and I hastily rushed off to find where the first one had gathered. We piled into someone's room, had hardly got ourselves settled before someone - who shall be nameless - shouted "Room 28!" With a ragged cheer the fen moved out and we found ourselves swept along by the mob to Sandy's room again. It was here that Terry Jeeves had us all enthralled for half-an-hour whilst he told the shaggiest dog story I've ever heard and balanced a glass of bheer on his nose at the same time, Brian Burgess came in full of life, promptly plonked himself down on the nearest bed and dropped off to sleep. Sandy tried hard to get everybody to sing his latest composition, "Charlie Mopps", but nobody seemed interested and the room gradually emptied of fen.
Passing that way several hours later, I saw my very first example of Norman and Ina Shorrock's handiwork. Sandy's bed had been turned upside-down and inside-out and the bedclothes were scattered all over the floor. Together with Sandy we tracked down the two guilty Liverpudlians, who hotly denied being the cause of such goings-on. If I'd had any sense I would have locked our bedroom door then, but I was too busy bringing ruin to other sleepy fen. It was about this time that we mislaid Sid Birchby. We later heard that he had gone to earth in a kitchen to write his conreport and spy on the nefarious activities of Dave Newman. Throughout, the evening Sid had been following us around with note-book in hand taking down masses of notes, and everybody frantically tried to remember if they'd said anything that could be used for blackmail. All through the evening I can best remember Norman Shorrock saying over and over again in a form of ritual of his own: "SSSHHS! Be quiet, we might hear something!" We never were and we never did. ROBERTA WILD: In the meantime Harris was pondering on the mating habits of snakes. I don't know what put the idea into his head unless it was the fact that I'd wrapped myself round him in a half-Nelson so he couldn't get away (there was still some Scotch in the bottle), "Perhaps they lay out flat - or maybe they coil up together" Since I had never thought about it I couldn't tell him. Besides I was too occupied in trying to tell him that blasted chair-back was digging into me every time we went into a clinch. We solved that problem by only using one chair, though at one point I had to shove Ina off his other knee. Just as the last the Scotch, which Chuck assured everyone was made out of old space socks, disappeared, Ina and Dave Newman appeared with the punch.
It looked and tasted quite mild, but Ina told me that the base was 140 proof Polish white spirit. She forgot to tell me that the other ingredients included rocket fuel and a dash of Brasso, I came out of another clinch to find Ron Bennett regarding us in rather a bewildered way. "But, Bobbie, you're really puzzling the Ompans," he said bemusedly. For those who don't know, Chuck and I tore each other up in the last OMPA and no doubt a few thought battle would be joined when we both turned up at the con. Well, you saw a wrestling match, didn't you? Suddenly all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Maybe it was the punch or maybe it was the fact that I'd felt tired even at the beginning of the con. Harris was bidding me farewell in the approved manner when his mind suddenly reverted to the problem of snakes. "Maybe they tie themselves in reef knots," he said into my ear. That did it! I suddenly had a mental picture of two unhappy and puzzled snakes trying to untangle themselves, and sitting on the ground I burst, into a fit of the giggles. "This isn't the sort of moment to get the giggles" he said indignantly. But I couldn't stop and it was his fault anyway, for bringing the subject up again. In the end, he stalked away muttering "I'm going to get you some coffee." This was a mistake as by the time I got to bed after drinking it I couldn't sleep.
This year the fans had a new idea, not room parties, but corridor parties and I lost count of the number of times they marched up and down. It sounded like the Afrika Korps and the Montgomery lot fighting to get the front row at the Folies Bergeres. I recall that round about six o'clock I bellowed shut up to some fans near my room. Sorry, Archie, but I was so tired I was on the point of screaming with fatigue. BARRY HALL: A group of fen including Norman and Ina Shorrock, Humph, Archie Mercer, Pete West and several others, all went back to Sandy's room to help straighten things out. When we arrived Ina Shorrock, that Queen of trouble-makers, had disappeared. Frantically I ran back to my room - just in time to see Ina and Humph trying to make themselves inconspicuous beneath our beds. At that moment I was pushed from behind by some ruffian called Pete West, and soon our room was full of screaming fen giving it the same once-over treatment Sandy's had taken. I valiantly went down with my bed, fighting to the last. I was rolled up in some blankets and then some clot sat on me. I scrambled out just in time for Pete West to take some photos of the shambles; it was only when everything had been put to rights that Pete discovered he hadn't had any film in the blame thing, so that small piece of fannish history was lost to us, as well as one of Ron Bennett being dragged feet first up the stairs. Ina Shorrock felt some little remorse and helped us remake our beds, on which Bryan and I swiftly collapsed.
SID BIRCHBY: The Saturday night party goes with a rhythm-and-blues beat. Your editors whirl each other round their heads; laughter and music fill the air in the Basket Lounge; Bill The Barman (a really likable gentleman who it is a pleasure to meet) bustles back and forth with trays of bottles, and at midnight a fanfare of trumpets announces the entry of Formula Four Blog. The party grows livelier yet. Laurence Sandfield hands out copies of a comic song written for the occasion, and I put my elbow in my beer. TJ and Bob Richardson fight a duel with plastic cocktail sticks. These little sword-shaped items, first seen in the bar, are now in every lapel.... a fannish motif clearly ordained by St. Fantony to mark the occasion. At 4am. the party tails off and the survivors either totter off to bed or begin to make the rounds of the room parties. Gradually the numbers shrink until by 5 am. only a dozen hard cases are left. Allow me to describe the scene at this time. It may help to convey some of the Marx Brotherish atmosphere of the night. A smell of coffee drifts up the stairs...that's Bill brewing up, I suppose. A little while ago, someone has locked me in a pantry, and while getting the door open again, I have made tea. Through the skylight I watch the...uh...sky lightening and hear a thrush singing. All is peace. Then with a wild shriek, Ina Shorrock flees past the pantry door hotly pursued by Sandfield and the mob. I never know why. Staggering along in the rear is Ron Bennett, roused from slumber, but fast relapsing. I shrug, and go back to my pantry for a second cup. Peace again... thrush singing like mad. Thunder of footsteps. Bennett races past. There's no one else in sight. "How d'you do?" I say politely, putting my head into the dark corridor. "How d'you do ?" he replies, not pausing to see who it is, and steams into the distance. Again, I don't know why, because by now the hotel is at last asleep, apart from a groaning far off, like the unquiet spirit of Archie Mercer's accordion.
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