Mumblings from Munchkinland 16
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OCTOBER 2000 25 CENTS Mumblings from Munchkinland -- the only West Australian fanzine published in Tasmania -- welcomes a new ruby to Ozl A GEM BY ANY NAME I have seen the future. And it is pink. Ruby Alida Nelson-Lee was born on the 22nd of October, weighing in at 9 lb. 10 oz. – a BIG girl! As Ella was quick to point out, the girls in the family now well and truly outnumber the boys. I put no faith in premonitions but it’s curious that Megan and I had less trouble agreeing on another girl’s name than we did a boy’s. Exactly where “Ruby” came from I don’t think we know, but “Alida” was the first name of one of my great-grandmothers (yep, that’s her above, watching over her namesake). Alida’s husband was John Anton, after whom my middle name was given. By coincidence careful planning, Ruby will share the same initials as her paternal grandfather. Funnily enough, this would still have been true if we had gone with another second name we were considering. For years, one dead end in the Cady family tree – my paternal grandmother’s branch -- had been when Josiah Cady Jr. married a mysterious Abigail, surname unknown, back in the 18th century. Thanks to a genealogical website, I discovered Abigail’s surname was Boswell and that the Boswell family history has been researched extensively – back to the 15th century, anyway. Fascinating for me, but Megan preferred Alida and, truth be told, so did I. We hope Ruby likes it, too. The birth itself went more quickly than either of the first two, though not without pain for Megan. She made the mistake of getting out of the bath too soon, probably, so despite hot towels across her lower back she was still screaming for it to end sooner than it did. A small part of her discomfort was due to the tag-team of midwives we had. Both of the midwives who had visited us for the prenatal check-ups had told us they would be travelling around the expected date of Ruby's birth. There was a small window of inopportunity during which neither of them (we thought) would be in Launceston, so a third midwife was briefed and dropped in to see us a few times. Giving birth would have to be the most personal and vulnerable experience of a woman's normal life, so the relationship between her and her midwife has to be bloody close (pardon the pun). Naturally, Ruby decided to make her move during the inopportune period for our primary midwives. Our third midwife arranged for yet another to be on hand and Megan had invited a good friend with nursing experience along as well. Wendy, Megan's mum, had flown in some days before to look after Lauren and Ella. Anyway, getting out of the bath prematurely was due in part to unclear or misunderstood advice from one of the midwives, so Megan was not happy when told that things had not progressed as far as she had thought. I think the midwives were a little surprised at the foul cursing which followed, though Megan's exclamation of "Far out, brussel sprout!" at one point did lessen the tension. After several hours of this, our baby was born. Megan immediately asked me what it was and at the instant I was perplexed. It was obviously a healthy baby; what did she mean, “what is it?” Of course what she meant was: “Is it a girl or a boy?” Before the birth, we had asked Ella if she wanted another sister or a little brother this time and she had said she wanted a brother. Why? “Because I don’t have one of those yet”. Megan was concerned that I might desperately want a boy, for the same reason. It doesn’t worry me, really. I am a bit envious of Megan, for I suspect she will develop closer relationships with the girls than I as they grow older. But I am a very happy and proud dad, and I was delighted to tell her that we had another girl when I finally came to my senses. Ella and Lauren are both delighted with their new sister, too, as demonstrated by their eagerness to help with baths, nappy changes and rocking Ruby to sleep – not to mention smothering her with hugs and kisses! Lauren was two years old a fortnight before Ruby’s arrival and has only just begun putting complete sentences together. Nevertheless, she summed up the situation from her point of view nicely by announcing to her playmates at the childcare centre: “I’m a big sister now!” - 2 - RUBY AND HER SISTERS NELSON-LEE - Chris and Megan are hapJlY to an· nounce the birtli of Ruby Alida, a sister for Ella ana Lauren at the Launceston Birth Centre, October 22, 2000. Many thanks to Wendy, Anna, Yvonne Marguerite, Jean and Elaine. FROM SUNBEAMS TO CAMELLIAS In early 1939 Vol Molesworth and Ken Jefferys formed a Junior Science Club in Sydney. This, Vol wrote in his A History of Australian Fandom was "regarded as opposition to the JASFCC, especially as Molesworth and Castellari were personal enemies at the time". The Junior Australian Science Fiction Correspondence Club had been founded the year before by Veney, Castellari and the Russell brothers. Vol doesn't say why Bert and he weren't getting along. Bert recalls that he and Vol had started as copyboys at The Sunday Sun within a week of each other in January 1939: "We got on reasonably well in the first year...I never thought of us as 'personal enemies'". (Graham Stone has pointed out that Vol did not use this wording in his Outline History of Australian Fandom in 1953.) "For more than three months the two organisations ... battled silently for members", Vol continued. "Through newspaper publicity [the JSC] enroled thirteen members". He gives no further details about where this publicity appeared, but The Sun seemed like a good place to look if an opportunity arose. In July I attended a two-day seminar at the State Library of New South Wales. After the first day's sessions concluded I went for a wander through the Library and -- small world! -- found Graham Stone catching up on his journal reading. We had a snack and a chat, during which I asked him if he knew where Vol's "newspaper publicity" had appeared. "Almost certainly in the children's section of The Sunday Sun and Guardian Magazine," he replied. "It was called Sunbeams." Encouraged by this confirmation of the likely source, I decided to spend a bit of time searching some of the microfilmed copies of The Sun there and then. This was great fun, to start with. WW2 had not yet started in early 1939, but the newspaper headlines of the day are preoccupied with the prospect of war -- except when Prime Minister Lyons dies suddenly, in April, to be succeeded by Robert Menzies. The ads and fashions alone are fascinating -- familiar yet strange at the same time -- and I couldn't skip the episodes of "Speed Gordon" which appeared in each issue of the Sunday papers. Eventually, just as I was getting somewhat bleary-eyed from watching newspaper type whiz by, I spotted this tiny ad in the April 30 edition of Sunbeams (page 2). The author's name on the bottom line is partially obscured on the original also, but by comparing the address to those in fanzines of the day it is clearly Ken Jefferys. Graham informs me that Ken was a cousin of Vol Molesworth. Within three months, both the JSC and the JASCC had collapsed, clearing the way for the creation of the Futurian Society of Sydney later in the year by former members of both clubs. At least some of the JSC's recruits from Sunbeams became active in the FSS. I thought I'd made a scoop when I came across a "short story" in another Sunbeams (March 5) called "Trip to a Planet" by one Donald Lawson, aged 14, of Eastwood. But Graham doubts it could be the same Don Lawson who participated in Futurian Society activities after the war because their ages don't match. How the Australian Futurians adopted the term from their American counterparts is well known. And the high rate of success by members of the American group -- specifically, the Futurian Society of New York -- as professional sf editors and writers is also no secret. Wollheim, Pohl and Lowndes all became editors of pulp sf magazines whilst still Futurian members -- and much of their respective magazines' content was produced by fellow Futurian writers. They were not shy about boosting their members' efforts, as the page opposite illustrates. The Australian Futurians would have noticed the success of their American namesakes and quite a few were willing to have a go themselves, despite vast differences in the local publishing scene. Years ago, Graham located short stories by Vol, Eric Russell, Alan Roberts and possibly Colin Roden and David Evans published in The Sun or The Mirror from 1943 onwards. Evans also had a few in Quiz, a humour magazine, and there may have been others. - 4 - The most ambitious, however, was Vol. His six-penny novelettes for Currawong Press began in 1943 with the Frankenstein-like Ape of God and its sequel, Monster at Large. A number of detective stories with fantastic-sounding titles, including Prelude for Death, The Wizard Returns and Satan's Understudy followed, as did a trilogy of space stories concerning the Stratosphere Patrol, published by Transport Publishing Co.