Friday 9th April - [Programme]ROGER I. 'ROJE' GILBERT:I woke up very early. Known as 'panic guts', I have never been late for anything, only far too early. We piled into the car and down to Vic Hallet's houseboat. He was still dressing at his own pace, and got chivvied up by an agitated Roje. Finally got him into the car, and realised I hadn't watered the plants I'm looking after for some friends. Back to the house at seventy, water plants, and back to the bus station, arriving 15 minutes before departure. Said "tata" to Heather. Vic unerringly chose the draughtiest seat in the bus. Off we went to Cheltenham. Cheltenham bus station is incredible. They stack buses in at maximum density and then play chess with them. The first thing we noticed was the 20 yard queue outside the ladies and the interdigitating stream in and out of the gents. We were suddenly hailed by Gill Adams, who appeared completely unworried by the queue - she had booked, in advance. The coach was found after three attempts, and the journey to Worcester was a delight, through a part of England I knew not at all. Finally to our goal, nestled in a vale of the Malverns. GRAHAM POOLE (at his first con): After paying my registration fee at the Giffard Hotel I got a shock when I realised that the film programme went on till the early hours of the morning, as I had intended to travel to Worcester daily, returning to Cheltenham each evening. I started to look for a place to stay, and I finally got a room at the Imperial, laughingly called a hotel but more of a boarding house cum pub really. The landlord was very friendly and showed me up to my room which I had do share with someone else. I returned to the hotel (Giffard) for lunch to make up for my scanty breakfast, but first I enquired at the desk about my tape-cum-pen pal’s arrival no sign of her yet. I entered the dining room to be met by a barrage of waiters who escorted me to a table, lavishing every courtesy upon me they served up my meal. VERNON BROWN: Friday morning of course things started going wrong - after setting up the tables and notices for registration (did anyone notice the deliberate mistake in the spelling of comemmorative (sic)) we found that the duty rota we had worked out was no good as some volunteers were late, resulting in Roger Peyton, myself and two con members running the desk between us most of the day.
We discovered we couldn't lock the art room door. After piling chairs against it when unattended, we found that the frame had warped. However, scientific use of a nail-file and, later, a carefully-timed and executed kick, surmounted this obstacle to safety. We then found that the door could only be locked from the inside and we had to retrace our steps through the room, leave by a fire-exit and wander through the bowels of the earth before creeping up a flight of echoing concrete stairs and emerging from the panelling into the main first floor corridor. The whole process was rather ERB-ish, especially as a wrong turn led to a series of ledges and huge doors overlooking black depths, which undoubtedly hid waiting and hungry denizens. ROJE GILBERT: Gill said that the first person she wanted to meet was Lisa Conesa, because she (Lisa) was crackers. I had gained an essentially similar opinion from my correspondence, and was pleasantly surprised by reality. Good old Phil Muldowney was there already, trying to grow a beard. I remember ending up in the bar, where I appeared to cause blissful delight to Ratfandom by just being alive. I know that I am an extremely lovable and pleasant personality, but this adoration was a little too much for me. Although quite incapable of blushing, I felt sorry for this happy band of Ratfen, innocently worshipping my presence, sorry that I could not accept them into my fold - they are as yet too full of childish illusions, but soon, if they do not get too old.... ((Well that's one way of dealing with their constant mockery....))
VERNON BROWN: After a hurried lunch at a snack bar round the corner it was back to the desk again all afternoon, except for a few minutes sitting on the dais during the chairman's welcome, and a further few minutes fiddling with the lights for Jack Cohen's lecture - which brings a gem of thought from the dim recesses of my mind. While an organising committee should be small - three or four members at most - there should be a larger sub-committee responsible for being available and organising these small things and thus leaving the main committee to deal with major worries and/or minor catastrophes. PETER WESTON: The first speaker at EASTERCON was supposed to be James Blish; we decided upon a serious, science fiction-based talk to set the tone of the proceedings. It didn't work out that way. The audience failed to appear on time due to British Rail's go-slow, while Jim Blish arrived late due to bad navigation between Henley and Worcester. Jack Cohen eventually opened with his excellent "The Possibility of Life on Other Planets", followed in the end by Jim with his study of Damon Knight. GRAHAM POOLE: Despite the note in the programme leaflet that the programme items would indeed begin at the times advertised, the start was delayed by an hour due to the audience not being present! And a further delay of 7 mins due to the programme committee not being present. However, finally at 3.07pm the Convention was under way. The first item on the amended agenda was Dr Jack Cohen's talk on "Life on Other Planets". Dr Cohen started off by discussing how life originated on earth, quoting examples of experimentation by Miller, illustrating his arguments with some slides from the STAR TREK series etc. The talk was stimulating, interesting and informative and I think a good start to the convention.
The next speaker was James Blish on "All in a Knight's Work". Much as I admire this writer I found his talk a complete contrast to Dr Cohen’s. I can remember little of what was said - something about SF writer’s circle which he was in a decade or two ago. The speech was dull and dreary, maybe due to the subject matter - whatever it was - or maybe due to the fact that he was reading the speech from a set of notes. It was uninformative and unstimulating or distimulating or whatever....
After the talk was over we dissembled, whatever that means, and I wandered along in a mass of bodies wondering what to do with myself. Suddenly the stairs to the book and art room reared into view and on an impulse I dived down the steps one at a time. Above the drone of voices I heard a voice calling...I faltered, could it be her? My heart pounding I turned and ran up the steps two at a time and emerged into the EASTERCON reception area. I followed the owner of the voice (Jill Adams), knowing that she would lead me to the one I sought. I saw Jill talk to someone and thought, that can’t be her.... But nevertheless I approached wondering what to say - something elaborate like: "Lisa Conesa I presume," or: "Allow me to introduce myself," giving a little bow, or: "You don’t know who I am do you? But I know who you are...." I approached and asked: "Are you Lisa?" After delightful salutations and greetings we strolled to the lounge to further our conversation, and I started to lose my feeling of inferiority. After all I now knew at least three others at the convention. GRAY BOAK: Perhaps the major drawback of a convention is that, at some randomly-chosen times, a member of the committee will appear and break up all vibrantly-fannish gatherings by announcing that some bore or collection of bores are about to break wind in the Con Hall. There are almost always just enough of the group gullible enough to wish not to miss this event (and I include myself) to kill dead the atmosphere. However, as cons go, Worcester had quite a good programme - but for the fecund over-abundance of films. If I want to watch films I stay up for the late night TV show. I go to cons to meet people, and this aim is difficult to achieve if the people I wish to see are busy watching "Noddy in Marsville". ((Ratfandom produced the first of their scurrilous convention giveaways for this con, 'The Little-Read Stool Book', but it wasn't the only give-away. Members of OMPA also produced a second combozine: ))
GRAHAM POOLE:
After dinner (which we all missed for one reason or another) we
attended "Meet the Celebrities" part of the programme. I never
met any (at that point I didn’t know what any of the celebrities
looked like, but by Easter Monday I knew them all) but Lisa and
I had them pointed out to us by Phil Muldowney.
The film programme came after that. Starting with an out of date
something on Apollo 8. This was followed by the Delta Group's "Manchester
Movies", produced by amateurs which was all too evident
and some of the gags were bad too. However, the magnanimity of some
of them was really quite excellent especially one about a crooked
gambler who brakes the bank at the casino and flies to another
planet where the money is needed.
'Tenth Victim' was on next which I rather enjoyed; then 'Flash Gordon'.
It was so awful that STAR TREK is a T.V.
epic masterpiece in comparison. Most of it was unintentionally
hilarious, no doubt in 20 years time we shall look back on Star
Trek and similar SF television serials just as we do on Flash
Gordon now.
At this point I had to leave, it was 2 o’clock. It would have
been interesting to see what the 1950’s thought of space travel
but I had to get back to the pub-cum-hotel. Fortunately the
landlord was up and I settled down for the night.
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