Scratch Pad 68 January 2008
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Scratch Pad 68 January 2008 ‘Starship 1’: Graphic by Elaine Cochrane, using DJFractals. Scratch Pad 68 January 2008. A fanzine for efanzines.com, including the non-mailing comments sections of *brg*s 50, 51 and 52, published originally in ANZAPA, written and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard St, Greensborough VIC 3088. Phone: (03) 9435 7786. Email: [email protected]. Member fwa. Contents 3 Robin Johnson: The Big Heart of Australian Fan- David Bratman, Mike McInerney, R-Laurraine dom by Bruce Gillespie Tutihasi, Casey Wolf, Lloyd Penney, Gregg Trend, 5 Fannish Archiving Blues by Tim Marion David Langford, Tony Thomas, Dora Levakis, 10 Bye Bye Johnny: 24 November: The Morning After Julian Warner, David J. Lake, Steve Jeffery, Andy by Bruce Gillespie Sawyer, Ross Chamberlain, Mark Plummer, John 11 Bruce Gillespie’s Favourites of 2005 Purcell, Casey Wolf, Ben Indick, Chris Garcia, Greg 17 Bruce Gillespie’s Favourites of 2006 Benford 28 Letters from Marty Cantor, Billy Pettit, Murray 42 Farewells Moore, William Breiding, Ted White, Curt Phillips, 42, 44 Back cover: Edible Greensborough 2 Robin Johnson: The Big Heart of Australian Fandom by Bruce Gillespie During the Awards Ceremony at Nippon, the 2007 World Convention held in Yokohama, Japan, Robin Johnson, former member of ANZAPA, was given the Big Heart Award. This is Forry Ackerman’s annual award to a person who has given lifelong service to fandom. Murray MacLachlan asked me to write the following piece for the next issue of Ethel the Aardvark, the fanzine of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. At my first convention, the Melbourne SF Conference of Cleaning. 1968, I knew three people when I arrived. At the conven- During that convention I became aware of a Voice — tion I met a few more people, including a sixteen-year- a very pukkah English voice, constantly nattering to lots old David Penman, who later became Jim Penman, of of members of the convention. A visiting English fan or Jim’s Mowing, Jim’s Tree Lopping and Jim’s Window author, I thought to myself. Why would a bloke with such a distinguished accent ever talk to me? In August 1968 I joined ANZAPA, with Mailing No. 1. Thanks to the help of John Bangsund, Lee Harding and Leigh Ed- monds, I published my first fanzines. I received a friendly, informative letter of comment from a Robin Johnson from Syd- ney. He seemed to think we had met, but I couldn’t remember him. In January 1970, I travelled to my first interstate convention: Syncon 1, held in the Epping Scout Hall, in the middle of the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney. I met for the first time lots of people with whom I had been exchanging fanzines and letters of comment: Peter Darling, John Brosnan, John Ryan, Gary Mason . and Robin Johnson. Yes, Robin was the man with the pukkah English accent, the bloke I had been too timid to talk to in 1968. He was about my height, but seemed a lot older than most other fans. He was already bal- ding, but wore a toupee, and had that round shape that later I would imitate. He was actually in his early thirties. He was very easy to talk to, although it was often difficult to work out where the conversation might lead. Conversation with Robin seemed perpetually baffling but fascinat- ing. During the days after Syncon 1, I was sitting outside a Sydney cafe on a sunny afternoon. Bert Chandler (famous English writer A. Bertram Chandler, who adopted Australia as his home during the 1950s) was sitting opposite me, and Robin Johnson was beside me. Bert told me all about the great restaurants of Sydney. I nodded sagely. Robin Johnson, Nippon (2007 World Convention), Yokohama, In 1970, although I was about to turn twenty-three, I Japan, August. (Photo: Alan Stewart.) had eaten at a restaurant exactly once. Robin invited 3 Robin Johnson, Chair, Aussiecon 1, August 1975, holding the gavel, which I presume he is about to hand on to unknown persons, the representatives of the 1977 Worldcon. Bruce Gillespie, looking puzzled as usual, also faces the camera. (Photo: Helena Binns.) both of us to visit his flat in North Sydney. benefit of the events of 1975 — the Le Guin Writers In 1970, Robin lived in the kind of tower-block inner- Workshop. city apartment that did not yet exist in Melbourne. We During Aussiecon itself, Robin shed all his apparent took the lift up from street level. The corridor outside the signs of dither, and triumphed. He gathered the team lift door looked like a hotel corridor. From the corridor that helped to put together the big circus at the Southern we entered Robin’s flat, which was one huge room. The Cross Hotel. The blokes from the Magic Pudding Club (a floor was covered with electrical equipment of various shared household in Carlton) arranged to videotape the kinds, and books and fanzines. Robin pointed to a couch whole convention, and John Bangsund, David Grigg and and we sat down. Right at that moment he was talking Carey Handfield assembled the Program Book. on the phone. At the same time the TV was blaring in Robin remembers that he felt okay until very early on one corner. In another corner the radio was on. Some the last morning of the convention. He found himself music was playing from a tape recorder. A book was open walking up the middle of the tram tracks in Bourke on the floor. So were several fanzines. What exactly had Street outside the Southern Cross Hotel. He had no idea Robin been doing when we arrived? why he was there, or what had happened during the Robin was always aware of the indirect method by previous few hours. which he interacted with the world. When he joined Aussiecon 1 changed Robin, as it changed all of us. ANZAPA a few years later, he called his fanzine The From then on, we found it a bit easier to conduct linear Butterfly Mind. He knew that his mind seemed to flit from conversations with Robin. He became increasingly in- one topic to another, causing listeners sometimes to volved in all sorts of fannish enterprises. About twenty writhe around the floor in anguish or sometimes in years ago he married Alicia, and went to live in Hobart, helpless laughter. where he became the main organiser of two Thylacons. Many of us felt that Robin was good company, but After he retired from his job, increasingly he was able to too disorganised to organise anything. How wrong we indulge in his lifelong passion — flying around the world. were. He was one of the Sydney delegates of the Aussie- In this way, the man with the impeccably pukkah con 1 bidding committee that John Foyster set up in English accent became Australian fandom’s permanent 1970. After Robin moved to Melbourne in 1972, the ambassador. committee changed rapidly. In late 1972, not long before In 2005, the fans of America and Australia raised the Melbourne made its bid in Toronto to hold the worldcon, money to send me to two San Francisco conventions that John Bangsund dropped out, and Robin found himself were being held a week apart. As I entered the door of Chair of an upcoming world convention. If Robin felt a the hotel of Potlatch, the second convention I attended, bit apprehensive, he didn’t show it. He gathered the the first person I saw was Robin Johnson. ‘I decided only troops around him, gave us our various tasks, and a week ago to attend Potlatch,’ he said a bit ruefully. ‘I’d slowly the convention took shape. better not shake hands; I’ve got a terrible cold.’ The next In 1973, I was in Toronto, at Torcon 2, as part of two people I saw were Jean Weber and Eric Lindsay, also Australia’s bid for the 1975 Worldcon. We won. I phoned from Australia. Thanks to Robin, overseas fandom has Ursula Le Guin, who had agreed to be our Pro Guest of probably long since decided that Australia is only a few Honour. She sounded a bit distressed. She had forgotten hundred kilometres off the coast of California. about our bid. She was not sure she could get to Because Robin now lives in Tasmania, I don’t see him Melbourne in August 1975, because she would be shift- often. Each time we meet, the conversation always takes ing continents during that month. I phoned Robin unexpected turns and leaps. Robin himself never seems Johnson. He phoned Ursula. Robin can be a silver- to change, although he has had some health problems tongue when he wants to be. He persuaded Ursula to in recent years. He seems to be the one guarantee that remain as our Guest of Honour. Ursula told him that there is an entity called Australian fandom. At its centre she would attend Aussiecon only if we held a writers’ is the Big Heart of Robin Johnson. workshop during the week before the convention. Robin agreed. This was the origin of the most permanent — Bruce Gillespie, 22 September 2007 4 As apas (amateur publishing associations) amalgamate or die (except for ANZAPA), we will need somebody to write a descriptive history of them. Not all of them stretch across continents, like FAPA and ANZAPA. Some have been confined to age groups, such as APA-45 (members born since 1945), of which I was a member in the early seventies, and some are confined to interest groups within fandom, such as The Secret Garden.