The Journal of Number 13: Temporal Regression February 2009 RELAPSE _______________________________________________________________________________________ “Brit fandom of the 1950s-60s still impresses me with its graceful lunacy, humour and insight.” – Greg Benford, LoC Rich Coad suggested he might drop in on Kettering on his way back from Hyderabad. BUT NOT OVER THE WEETABIX FACTORY, RICH!! – With the usual apologies to ‘Giles’ INSIDE: ‘Kettering, Oh Kettering,’ – Special feature on Cytricon V; ‘The Globe Mystery’ by Rob Hansen; ‘The Wandering Ghu – Part 6; Journeys in Distant Lands’ by Bruce Burn; PLUS Moorcock, Locke, & more. RELAPSE Yes, this is indeed the Fanzine Formerly Called Prolapse, with a long-overdue name-change (but see below) brought to your door by Peter Weston, 53 Wyvern Road, Sutton Coldfield, B74 2PS (Tel: 0121 354 6059). Lots of pictures this time, which I hope might inspire you to jot-down your own memories of times past and send them to me at [email protected]. This is a ‘Paper First’ fanzine though I’m sending out an increasing number of pdf copies (particularly for overseas readers) and the issue will go onto the eFanzines website a month after paper copies have been posted. As before, Relapse travels the time-stream to explore British SF fan-history. Chief Researcher; Greg Pickersgill, with much help from Rob Hansen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Prolapse turned up. Dropped everything. Read from cover to cover. Bloody good.” – Mike Moorcock, LoC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In early1983 after a brief spell of gafia I chose the name Prolapse as a mild play on words; I said at the time, “Look up the dictionary definitions – ‘falling down’ (that’s fannish) and ‘to slip out of place’ (which is exactly what’s happened to me, as the microcosm has moved on in my absence). Also, in my previous incarnation I aspired to a sort of third-rate ‘pro’ status, and now I’ve lapsed back into fandom.” So it made sense then, but I really missed a trick in 2006 (as Earl Kemp has never tired of telling me) by reviving the same title when I returned to fanzine fandom for a second time. After all, what was this other than a relapse into earlier patterns of thought and behaviour? Isn’t this exactly what I want other contributors to do by casting their minds back into the deep past for anecdotes and information? Because the rationale of this fanzine – the reason for its appeal, if you like – is my belief that once individuals are hooked by fandom they find it hard to put it entirely behind them. The years fly past but for old fans the magic never quite goes away. So it didn’t take very much prodding to get long-gafiated people such as (deep breath) John Berry, Gerald Bishop, Bruce Burn, Ramsey Campbell, Chuck Connor, Dick Ellingsworth, Ted Forsyth, Tony Glynn, John Hall, Keith Freeman, George Locke, Mike Meara, Mike Moorcock, Dan Morgan, Peter Nicholls, Stan Nicholls, Joe Patrizio, Bob Parkinson, David Redd, Simone Restall and Fred Smith to start writing again, in this current issue joined by Ian Peters and Tony Thorne. I have hopes for others… Daphne (Buckmaster), won’t you tell us more about the London Circle? … Don (Malcolm), what happened to those stories about Bob Shaw and other SF writers? …Don Geldart, were you really in MI5? Whenever I’ve visited old fans – Brian Varley, Ted Tubb, Ina, Terry Jeeves, Alan Hunter – I find they’re keeping the flame alive with a pile of ancient fanzines, old pictures, letters, and they’re only too glad to talk about fan-groups, past conventions, happy times long ago. And I’ve had great conversations with people like Beryl Bentcliffe who, strictly speaking, weren’t fans themselves but who inhaled some of the stardust … there’s a comment to this effect from Susie Haynes (Ken Slater’s daughter) later in this issue. So it’s Relapse from now onwards. Sounds better, doesn’t it! And that new heading up there is in a typeface called ‘Stencil’ which seems appropriate. But before we move on completely from the old regime let’s give an airing to a little rhyme that Andy Sawyer has contributed in the general spirit of the thing:- Weston's plans to immortalise fans Deserves support. Let's go, chaps! It's nice to see our secret vice In WIDOWER'S WONDERFUL PROLAPSE Speaking of wonderful things… Less than fifteen minutes ago as I write, I heard from Wally Weber in Seattle that he’s found the negatives from his TAFF-trip in 1964. And the reason that’s so wonderful is because Wally attended the ‘Bullcon’ (or RePetercon, as it’s now more generally known) which was my very first convention. For me it was a life-changing experience, so much so that I devoted an entire chapter to it (‘Easter Brummies’) in the ‘memoir’ I wrote for NESFA. But pictures from Peterborough have always been few and far between; almost no-one seemed to take a camera to the cons of the mid-sixties, in marked contrast to earlier years when many fans (Peter West, Norman Shorrock, Terry Jeeves, Eric Bentcliffe, etc) snapped merrily away at anything in sight. Until now I’ve had no more than a dozen or so blurry images from the 1964 convention. So now you can see why I’m so looking forward to meeting Wally at Corflu next month. What will I find on those long-forgotten strips of 35mm film that have for so many years been sitting in a ‘Caramel Delight’ box next to his downstairs refrigerator? Images of Cliff Teague? Terry Pratchett? The Hum-&-Sway? Not that Wally has exactly been slacking – ever since we established contact a few weeks ago we’ve been swapping pictures from Loncon I, which he visited on his first British trip in 1957. Thanks to Wally I now have great new shots of Walt & Madeleine Willis, Mike Moorcock and Norman G. Wansborough, of whom you’ll hear more at a later date. Our cover this time The idea came to me on the day before Cytricon V when Rich Coad wrote, “I’ll cast a wave as the plane from Hyderabad via Frankfurt passes in the vicinity of the British Isles. Stopping over, unfortunately, did not turn out to be an option.” Well, he didn’t exactly say that he’d drop in, but in my mind’s-eye I visualised him parachuting over Kettering and that just clicked with the Giles cartoon and a fanzine piece I’d read about the Weetabix factory which formerly saturated the townscape with its all-pervasive smell of cooking grain. Annoyingly, I can’t find the reference now – and I’ve searched everywhere – but that must have been a BIG factory! And as a critic said of the cartoon, “the humour is eclipsed by the feeling of terror which the picture evokes. It is an amazing drawing and should certainly be kept well away from anyone who suffers from even the mildest form of vertigo, Greg.” 2 Here’s a nice bit of synchronicity. Last year I produced three display panels for the BSFA’s 50th anniversary, and on the weekend after Cytricon V Mark Plummer took them along to Newcon in Northampton, where they provoked a blog post (whatever that is) from one Geoff Nelder. He wrote, (slightly abbreviated here):- ‘One aspect that hit me full-on was a panel about the BSFA. It wasn’t the words that mattered, but a picture. I staggered-back as I recognised a face before seeing his name. Eric Jones lived at #44 Barbridge Road, Cheltenham, and I lived at #43! When I was a kid my dad would create black pen & ink illustrations to be meticulously pin-pricked onto Gestetner skins for the Cheltenham fan-magazine, Sidereal. I thought all dads did that! I also thought all streets had their own mags!’ [A misapprehension shared by Buck Coulson’s young son after producing Yandro every month! - PW] Mark contacted Geoff Nelder, told him Eric Jones had died in 1967, and pointed him at Keith's appreciation in Prolapse #8. He replied: ‘It's quite likely I met Keith though I was only a short-trousered nipper at the time. I was often in Eric's house to help with the printing and stapling of Sidereal and stuffing envelopes, licking stamps – ugh! Eric had a dog and I persuaded it to be a stamp-licker. I would have been only eight or so and although I recall people coming and going I don't remember details. No. 43 Barbridge Road, where I lived, is across the road and up a little from number 44.’ Having in turn been tipped-off I made contact with Geoff who wrote, ‘My dad is now 82, living in Ledbury. He is having radiation treatment for a bladder cancer but retains his humour and was really pleased to learn that Eric is still remembered, and that his artwork survives. Somewhere in this house is one of his original cover sketches. When I find it I'll scan it for you, Peter. We've no idea where Margaret went after Eric died.’ Cytricon V – The Final Reckoning; One of my sillier ideas was the Cytricon song – ‘Kettering, Oh Kettering’, something I wrote a week or two before the con and which mad-rocker Ian Sorensen kindly sang and recorded. Unfortunately the effect wasn’t quite what I’d hoped-for because the two small speakers plugged-into my laptop didn’t have the power to do justice to Ian’s rendition. But that can be rectified now; on request I’ll send you the mp3 attachment for you to play in the privacy of your own home! Kettering, Oh Kettering, I still see that Liverpool party I still see the beanies spinning With the Big BEM that we could see How I miss your lovely wimmin' And was the punch-bowl all for me I was 21, when I left Cytricon.