YARCON - THE 1966 EASTERCON
The following list has been gleaned from con reports, photos, and the like. Consult membership list in Programme Book to see who else registered and so most likely (but not necessarily) turned up as well. Known Attendees:
More of Bill Burns's UK con badges here Report below edited together from those written by the individuals noted. Comments inserted by me appear in parentheses or are italicised, or both. Source notes and links to complete, unedited versions of those reports can be found here. The photos presented herein come from a variety of collections, though this doesn't mean a particular picture was taken by that person. The collection photos are from, where known, is noted in parentheses thus: (ns) Norman Shorrock, (sn) Stan Nicholls, (pm) Peter Mabey, (kf) Keith Freeman, (ks) Ken Slater, (te) Tony Edwards, (dk) Dave Kyle, (tj) Terry Jeeves. As always, a tip of the hat to Peter Weston for identifying many of the people in these photos and for supplying them in the first place. Here are links to pages devoted to the individual days and to convention literature.
ProloguePETER WESTON:Rog Peyton asked me to do a fanzine review feature for VECTOR. He had a hole to fill because he had just lost Jim Groves' "For Your Information" column, since Jim was emigrating to the United States. I liked the idea of trying to draw others into the fannish web, but made the big mistake of using a pen name. At the time, it seemed a great idea. Rog and I put our heads together and decided on some misdirection, choosing our pseudonym by combining the names of two Scottish authors who were active in the BSFA at the time, Donald Malcolm and Edward Mackin. The first instalment appeared in VECTOR #38 (March 1966) and was intended to be a little controversial. "A recent columnist exposed a long-held and festering belief that the BSFA was only a recruiting station," I began, "that it had no purpose other than to provide cannon-fodder for the Big Guns of Science Fiction Fandom. Now that's an extremist attitude (one not to be encouraged, semaphores the outraged committee behind the scenes), yet I'll stick out my tender neck and say that it does have some elements of truth. Like it or not, this is a dual-purpose organisation." I enjoyed writing the column and ended with reviews of LIGHTHOUSE, DOUBLE: BILL, and [my own] ZENITH (that'll really fool 'em, I thought). It was my first attempt at structured fan writing rather than last-minute composed-on-stencil pieces for NEXUS, and Rog and I thought the timing would be perfect, so that the Yarmouth Eastercon would be buzzing with surmise and speculation at the secret identity of the new man. Who was this mysterious, masked columnist? Who was "Malcolm Edwards"?
Friday 8th AprilRON BENNETT:The eighth (and technically the last) annual Convention of the British Science Fiction Association was held over the Easter weekend at the Royal Hotel on the sea front at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Atrocious weather helped to offset the effects of the rival "convention" of mods and rockers that was being held simultaneously at the same resort. Contrary to public opinion these non-fan visitors were not plied with Norman Shorrock's home brew. Over 100 fans were present during the weekend.
PETER WESTON: The four of us - Rog in the front seat, Darroll [Pardoe] and Charlie [Winstone] in the rear - set off on the long drive to the 1966 convention, over 180 miles due East on winding country roads. We stopped for a quick Chinese meal at Peterborough; two years earlier, I had thought that was remote. Now we were going nearly twice as far, through picturesque Wisbech, home of Ken Slater's "Fantast" bookshop, across sugar-beet fields and flat, empty fenlands that seemed to go on forever. It was four o'clock before we eventually checked in at the Royal Hotel on the seafront at Yarmouth. We were among the first to arrive, and Rog and I had a beer in the bar, where we met Con Turner and Jim Marshall, a genial couple of old fans from the North-East who had recently published their fanzine Gestalt, with a newcomer, Harry Bell, who had come down with them. It was a warm afternoon and we decided to go for a stroll along the promenade, but we didn't get far because only a few hundred yards down the beach was a fun fair, which Rog insisted upon investigating. It had been ages since I had been to a fair, so naturally we had candyfloss all round, and then Rog suggested we went onto the Waltzers, his favourite. The next ten minutes had the quality of a nightmare as I clung to the safety bar in a low-slung contraption which rumbled in tight little epicycles while the wooden deck thundered around and around and up and down, all to the bellowed tune of "Zambezi" and the rattle of mismatched castors. "Roll, pitch, and yaw," I thought grimly. "It might be good training for the space programme, but please God, just let me get out of this alive!" Then a tattooed demon from out of Hell itself appeared and gave our car a couple of hard pushes, just to make sure it was travelling at the very limit of its design capabilities. "I'm going to be sick," I groaned, as my stomach signalled it was about to expel its recent input of sweet-and-sour pork, beer and candyfloss. The fiend from Hell thought this was absolutely hilarious and gave us an extra-hard shove before going on to torment the lost souls in the next car. I knew I should have stuck to the dodgems! We staggered off and I thought Jim and Con looked a bit green, too, but not Rog Peyton, he of the cast-iron stomach, who immediately went onto an even more evil device, a sort of giant centrifuge with long metal arms that gradually lifted so they were vertical. From a safe distance on blessedly unmoving ground we watched in horrified fascination as Rog's little aluminium capsule rocketed straight down at about 6Gs, his head just visible through the mesh cover. Nothing bothers that man! After that, I hardly ventured out of the hotel all weekend.
BRIAN ALDISS: The convention at Great Yarmouth was very untypical in that some attendees had a little too much to drink. My wife and I slept in a room in the hotel used by Charles Dickens when he was writing 'Great Expectations', I remember. [Actually 'David Copperfield', according to the Programme Book.] RON BENNETT: The programme began at 8.15pm on Friday, 8th April, with the evening meal for those actually staying at the Royal, full board being part of the weekend arrangement. The seating at this meal was deliberately arranged so as to mix newcomers with older hands and opinions expressed tend to stress the atmosphere of friendliness which pervaded throughout the entire Con; there is little doubt that the Friday evening dinner promoted this right from the start. PETER WESTON: This was the year of the running battles between Mods and Rockers along Yarmouth seafront, this was the convention - unique in British fan-history - where the management insisted we had half-board terms, so we all sat down together at the same time in the hotel dining room. Rog was disgusted - "the worst food I've ever eaten during a convention," he said, but then he never did care for conventional English cooking. I liked the community atmosphere, which mixed us up and gave me a chance to meet people I might not otherwise have had nerve to approach. Eric Jones, for instance, Grand Master of the Order of St Fantony, who seemed very friendly, and Ken McIntyre, an old boy from London who was an artist, and generously offered to do me a cover for my fanzine.
RON BENNETT: The meal was followed by a welcome session in the Convention hall, at which Dave Kyle briefly introduced the members of the Con Committee and the better-known professionals present, Ron Whiting, James White, Harry Harrison, Brian Aldiss, John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, Ted Tubb, Tom Boardman and John Ramsey Campbell. These worthies then conducted an auction which was followed by a party thrown by the Bristol Group.
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