ARCHIVE
Inspired by the Dave Langford-led
CHECKPOINT
project some people became overenthusiastic
and undertook a similar plan to web all of the late
Ron
Bennett's really quite legendary newszine
SKYRACK. Yes, all 96 issues of it,
from its start in April 1959 to the
absolute end in July 1971. OK, not an
enormous project, simply hours of
scanning and OCR and some incredibly fast
and accurate copy-typing from Ms Brialey.
Fandom's little Stakhanovites in this instance were Greg
Pickersgill, Jim Linwood and
Claire Brialey. With invaluable proofreading by Bill Burns
and some original text courtesy of the Robert Lichtman Fanzine Collection,
and essential guidance with html and graphics by Catherine
Pickersgill.
If you haven't the slightest idea of what
SKYRACK was, or why you
should (most certainly!) be interested, see
this article by Ron Bennett his own
self, courtesy of the excellent fanzine
MIMOSA.
You will also find much related information here
at this instance of THEN, Rob Hansen's extremely useful
(indispensable, even!) history of British sf fandom. Chapters
2.3
- 3.2 cover the years of SKYRACK's highest activity.
More very entertaining information can be got from Peter Weston's
really superb autobiography of a science fiction fan, WITH STARS
IN MY EYES , from NESFA
Press , very much recommended, and see also
this webbed supplement
to the book, which includes some photographs of persons and events
mentioned.
If you (yes you...) have any personal
memories or anecdotes or retrospective
observations that relate to SKYRACK, it's times,
personalities and events, please
contact me at
skrac@gostak.demon.co.uk
with a view to having material included on this
site. I do know you're using this site, you know. A
bit of feedback would make all the effort worthwhile.
Next to no feedback of any kind received as of February 2015,
nearly 10 years after this site was first webbed. Well, then.
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