Index

SKYRACK Number 59, a TAFF result issue published on 2nd November 1963 by Ron Bennett and his Hallowe’en cablegrams at 17 Newcastle Road, Wavertree, Liverpool 15. 6d per copy, 2/6d for six issues. 35cents for 6 issues in the USA (70cents for 6 issues sent airmail). News of interest to sf fans is naturally always welcomed. Heading, cartoon and interior artwork by Arthur “Atom” Thomson and the pen picture is by Kenneth Cheslin of the Stourbridge Cheslins. Contributions are also by Starspinkle, Chris Miller, Bruce Burn, George Locke, Archie Mercer, Ella Parker, Ethel Lindsay, Ted Ball and Tony Walsh.

STOP PRESS; Further donations to the U.K. TAFF Treasury, received during the past week, have been Walt Willis £4; Eric Jones, Madeleine Willis, George Charters, James White and Bob Shaw 5/- each. Total is now £71.

WELCOME BACK, WALLY!

All round actifan Wally Weber will pay his second visit to these shores next March when he arrives as America’s Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate to the Easter Peterbrough convention. Wally, the personality boy of the Seattle Nameless Ones, headed the ballot which closed at midnight 31st October/lst November with the following three cornered contest figures:

                                                    U.K.    U.S.A.  Total

        Wally Weber                          38      165        203

        Marion Z. Bradley                  47      118        165

        Bruce Pelz                             40        89        129

On the British poll there were write in votes for Bob Pavlat and John S. Kennedy.

Wally was Chairman and Treasurer of the 1961 Seattle WorldCon, is secretary- treasurer of the Nameless Ones (of course you’ve read his reports in Cry!), has twice been rated SAPS leading humourist and has been a regular attendee at world. and local zone conventions for the past dozen years. British fans who attended thc 1957 London World Convention will remember well this quiet, almost wry beanpole whose rapier interjections had everyone curled up. It’s welcome back, Wally, and congratulations!

Ted White now Assistant Editor at F&SF. :::: US TAFF Treasury totals $943.

WHO’S WHO IN BRITISH FANDOM  Number 3 – Dave Hale

DAVE HALE, David J. Hale, stands some six feet six inches in his stocking feet. Well built, he boasts a great bush of brown hair which covers his head from his chin to his crown, from the midst of which a pair of beady bespectacled eyes peer in the best mad scientist manner.

It was an advert in New Worlds which lead Dave into fandom while he was still at school. As he lived near Ken Cheslin he was soon not only borrowing Ken’s fanzines, but was also cutting stencils for LES SPINGE and finally when Ken became too busy with BSFA work Dave took over the magazine, doting on colour changes and justified margins, thusly improving the appearance of the zine greatly. Since then Dave has entered OMPA for which association he produces Big Deal with the same care though here he perhaps allows himself a little more room for experimentation. Here we have a pillar of fandom in the making unless gafia gets at him first, for at the moment Dave is studying for a degree in psycholgy at the University of Manchester. -  (KMPC)

BBC TV of 9th October featured a fifty minute programme called. The Liverpool Sound. Apart from one of the currently popular Beatles group saying “we didn’t want to look ridiculous,” this programme was notable, and notable to fandom, in that it gave viewers a glimpse of former fan and one time Ploy art editor, Bill Harry. Two years ago Bill began to publish a small newspaper called Mersey Beat which has kept pace with the growth of the popularity of the Merseyside pop groups. The paper now has a circulation of 25,000. Bill, who introduces groups on stage, presents prizes at pop functions and who has a track on a recent long playing record, was interviewed in the TV programme. He mentioned that Mersey Beat’s editorials had influenced groups towards a more professional outlook. In a Daily Mail feature on the trend away from Liverpool of the pop groups (11 Oct), Bill was again in evidence being quoted as saying, “The move from Liverpool is not just bad, it’s tragic”. The popularity of The Liverpool Sound programme, originally televised in the Liverpool and. London areas only, has caused the BBC to agree to repeat the programme on a national basis later this month.

WANTED, please. Can anybody oblige me with the current whereabouts of Peter Campbell, Paul Enever, Julian Parr, Dave Rike, Jerry Greene, Bill Rickhardt, Dave MacDonald and Cato Lindberg?

HEAR THIS, Terence Bull. At the same time that SKYRACK was losing its Stateside representative, Ron Ellik’s excellent fortnightly Starspinkle now has an overseas representative in Ella Parker, 43 William Dunbar House, Albert Road, London N.W.6. 9 issues for 7/6d (10/- Australian) or 9 issues airmail for 10/- (£1 Australian in view of higher airmail rates USA - Australia). Note that the 7/6 gets you the 9 issues sent surface mail and not printed rate. Ellik believes in seeing that his news is kept fresh in transit.

VECTOR 22 (October 1963; The Journal of the British Science Fiction Association, published by J. Michael Rosenblum, 7 Grosvenor Park, Leeds 7 and edited. by Archie Mercer, 70 Worrall Road, Bristol 8. Not available to the general public) The mixture, Mercer-style, as before, with official BSFA business, book reviews, and odd bits of interesting chatter. Pride of place goes to Harry Harrison for his interesting, but somewhat rambling, article The Author’s Lot, for which even the general public should make the attempt to borrow the magazine at least (they could join the BSFA). The most notable fact to emerge from this issue is that we appear to to again passing through one of those cycles when a lot of new talent is making the effort to express itself in print. And congratulations, Vector and artist Terry Jeeves; whilst you may have found yourselves on a schedule whereby you miss the Hugo Awards and the TAFF results by a week, you have at least beaten everyone to the obvious political cartoon.

ICARUS 5 (October 1963; Brian Allport and Dave Wood, 14 Edinburgh Street, Radford. Nottingham; 6d a, copy) From the outer reaches of parallel fandom comes this little-circulated zine with articles and stories from its own immediate ingroup. There is some good artwork and a commendable inclination to make this a general interest zine with a slant towards sf.

POINT OF VIEW 1 (Oct/Nov 1963; 9d per copy (first issue free on request) from Charles Platt, 8 Sollershott West, Letchworth, Herts). This Enever-Orion sized spirit duplicated fanzine marches into the field with pretty much the same aims and ideals as Icarus, with a nicely balanced content of fact, fiction and humour. Also notable is that like Icarus (whose editorial makes a strong point of the issue), Point of View deplores the fact that many fanzines are too esoteric to be understood by the outsider or the newcomer. (The obvious answer seems to be to make the attempt to progress away from being an outsider.) Point of View, by inviting contributions of a naturally subjective nature, could well fill the gap left by the suspension of Esprit.

THE CLOCKS HAVE BEEN PUT BACK and November is with us. Or had you noticed? This is the month to put forward nominations for the TAFF campaign to send a delegate from Britain or Continental Europe to the 1964 World Convention which will be held next September in San Francisco.Nominations close 30th November. To date but one candidate has been nominated, cartoonist and fan extraordinaire Arthur Thomson. Any more? (Nominations to either Ethel Lindsay, Courage House, 6 Langley Avenue, Surbiton, Surrey or to Ron Ellik, 1825 Greenfield, Los Angeles, California 90025, USA.) Meanwhile, since the publication of Skyrack 58, the British half of the TAFF treasury has risen to £65 9s 0d with the following additional donations -  Ted Forsythe three guineas; London “Friday Auction” and Tony Glynn £1 each; Clair Beck 14/-; Mervyn Barrett, Peter Singleton, Frances Varley, Brian Varley, Darrell Pardoe, 10/- each; D V. Goodman 8/1d; Rory Faulkner 7/6d; Burkhard Bluem 8/-; Horst Evermann 6/-; 5/- each from Bruce Burn, Terry Overton, Arthur Thomson, Max Jakubowski, Antonio Dupla, Charles Winstone, Guntram Omacht, Audrey Eversfield and Ted Tubb; And, what? l2/7d from Ted Forsyth!

LIVERPOOL FANDOM have gained three new members this past month (no, they haven’t doubled in size) with the arrival at Liverpool University of Dave Caplow, Brian Allport and Ron Bennett. Recent social outings have included a visit to showings of the Ten Best Amateur Films of the year and the annual dinner of the Merseyside Wine Makers’ Society. And you will be interested (undoubtedly!) to learn that apart from a club auction, the Group has recently replied to a letter from Argentine’s Alberto R. Runge whosc treatise 'Obstructions to Herencies’ was read and ingested. Greatly.

Who voted for Bennett for Secretary-Treasurer in the recent FAPA elections?

CHANGE OF ADDRESS DEPT:
Brian Allport, 73 Granville Road, Liverpool 15.
Bruce Burn, c/o NZBC Station IZD, Spring St., Tauranga, New Zealand.
Dave Hale, 13 Birch Grove, Rusholme, Manchster 14.
Max Jakubowski, 2l8bis rue St.Denis, Paris 2, France.
Chris & Jennie Miller, 10 Freegrove Rd., London N.7.
Tony Walsh, 38 Saxon Road, Bridgwater, Somerset.

STATESIDE SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE. It is a sad and lonely thing to be a fan without a Stateside representative. Bob Pavlat, to whom my everlasting thanks and appreciation are due, has handled some hundreds of $$$$ars on my behalf in the last 7 years, long before even the inauguration of Skyrack, but now with other, non-fannish interests looming on the Alpha Romeeotic slopes of mountainous horizons Bob has decided to relinquish the post. Until an equally worthy replacement is found SKYRACK is sans a dollar-area money minder. In the meantime,subscriptions here please, in bills, sticky quarters, or even small amounts in mint U.S. stamps.

SNIPPETS: Tony Walsh points out that he and Simone haven’t moved in order to escape 1964 Peterborough Convention responsibilities and that now registrations will be welcomed at Saxon Road :::: Congratulations! Newly qualified Oxford B.A. Christopher A. Miller married to Jennifer Crowe at Wisbech Town Hall 12th October :::: Alan Rispin has left London to take an engineering course at Newcastle University :::: Bruce Burn has landed job as announcer in Bay of Plenty with New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation :::: Roger Horrocks moving Stateside :::: Ed.Meskys, Theor. Div. Bld 162, LRL Box 808, Livermore, California 94551, is lacking a copy of Skyrack 56 and would appreciate a copy for his files, please :::: Because of the Rispin move to Newcastle, George Locke is now collecting auction material for the. PeterCon :::: Stage director Peter Brook of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art is beginning a series of avant-garde experiments in Paris. Amongst others Mr Brook announces that he will direct sf. The Daily Mail quoted him as saying, “I have a number of things in mind, but the plays of Ray Bradbury interest me particularly. Science fiction is a comparatively new form for the stage.” :::: Archie Mercer recently did the rounds of Yorkshire fandom, visiting Terry & Val Jeeves, Irene Boothroyd, Michael & Betty Rosenblum, Keith and Colin Freeman, Rik Dalton, Joe Lynn and. Ernest Sterne. :::: SFCoL members last month went on a specially arranged guided tour of the Daily Mail, Lang Jones, Ella Parker, Ted Ball, Arthur Thomson and Ethel Lindsay being honoured by being allowed to play with the linotype machines. Arthur typed out “Yngvi is a louse” for himself and was also seen standing by a gigantic rotary press, making handle-turning motions.