This is supposed to be an "Aussiecon" theme issue of Mimosa, but we haven't
said much about Australian fandom yet. The two biggest fan centers in the country
are, of course, Melbourne and Sydney, and each has active fan clubs that date back
to the 1950s and `60s. This next article describes some of the more interesting
personalities from that era.
Sleeping Beauty
Australian science fiction fandom in the
1960s was predominantly male, just as it was elsewhere in the world. So it was a
surprise when Ros Hardy showed up at the Melbourne Science Fiction Club one December
day. Not only was Ros female, she was also the girlfriend of Alan South, secretary
(from time to time) of the Futurian Society of Sydney, and relations between the
MSFC and the FSS were somewhat strained, to put the best light on it.
As it turned out, Ros maintained some
association with sf fandom for another twenty years, attending the 1972 Sydney
convention (as I recall) and throwing room parties (during the day, as an
alternative to the 'programming') which required those partying to watch a cricket
test match on television since Ros had a thing about one of the members of the
Australian cricket team (Dennis Lillee). That was, of course, ANJ (After Nose Job)
but one of the main things which strained and strengthened relations between Sydney
and Melbourne fandoms occurred BNJ, about ten years before when she and I and John
Baxter (a.k.a. the Leading Film Biographer) went to a party in Sydney.
I visited Sydney very occasionally in the
early 1960s and as well as the fans, one of the people I used occasionally to see
was Ron Polson, a friend of Mervyn Barrett's who was also a jazz singer (and dope
smoker -- in 1965 Ron was arrested and tried for smoking marijuana and as a result
lost his most lucrative singing jobs, on national TV variety shows). On one of
these visits Ron invited me out to his house on Sydney's north shore, overlooking
the harbour, for a big party to celebrate the visit to Sydney of an American jazz
group.
In self-defense, as it were, I invited Ros
and John along with me, and that was going to be fine with Ron. John and I took a
taxi from the city across to Ros's place on South Dowling Street, and then across
the Harbour Bridge to Ron's house in Neutral Bay. There was no problem finding the
house (though I had been there previously) as the party was already in full swing.
Most of the people there were musicians, and most of them wanted to play their
instruments most of the time. It got pretty noisy, and escaping out to the garden
was really no relief. Of course, all that energy used in playing meant that fuel
was required, and a lot of people drank a lot of booze. As well as that, John
Baxter complained to me that he couldn't get into the toilet, which was always
occupied by people who seemed to be in there a long time. (It was one of those
occasions when a cast-iron bladder is a useful thing.) As John and I eventually
discovered when we returned from one of our frequent journeys outside for air and a
slightly lower decibel count, one of the people drinking a lot of booze was Ros,
and not long after midnight she passed out. It seemed like a good opportunity to
exit the party. But there were ramifications.
There was no point in trying to ring a taxi
from Ron's -- no chance of anyone hearing what we were saying -- but I 'remembered'
seeing a telephone box nearby on the way down, so John agreed that we should set
off on foot, and call from the box when we reached it. We managed to get Ros
sufficiently conscious to explain to her what we were doing, and slung her between
us in a fireman's lift.
So much for human memory! The 'telephone
box' proved to be completely illusory -- or else we were walking in a different
direction. Ros didn't stay conscious for very long, and then one of us had to carry
her alone -- me, with her over one shoulder. God, I must have been strong in those
days! I guess all those years of playing rugby did have a Higher Purpose after
all.
Even those not familiar with the geography
of Sydney will understand from words like 'harbour', 'north shore', and 'Neutral
Bay' that Ron's house was down near water level. To this must be added the fact
that the main road in the area ran along the top of the ridge. Thus we had a recipe
for fatigue. Even though Ros did wake occasionally (and thus make it possible for
John and me to share the load), carrying someone for over half a mile, Up Hill All
The Way, is not a lot of fun, and we were all relieved when we got to the main road
and hailed a taxi (well, John and I were relieved; no one, least of all Ros, would
know about her state of mind at the time). Taxi across the bridge, then back to
North Sydney where I was staying with John, at the end of which John remarked that
he didn't ever want to be invited to a party with me again. I couldn't understand
him; after all, it had been a fun party!
The Politician
Tony Sander was an engineer in the Royal
Australian Air Force. He was also a prominent member of the Melbourne Science
Fiction Club in the early 1960s. Tony liked to party -- I think he still does --
but in the mid 1960s a different kind of party attracted his attention.
Tony was not happy in the RAAF or, more
precisely, he thought he would be happier out of the RAAF. Unfortunately,
however, he had signed on for the long haul. His attendance at functions of the
MSFC, and at loosely-associated parties, was sometimes circumscribed by his
obligations in defence of our sunburnt country (although there were occasional
cross-fertilisation benefits, as when he described in some detail the performance
characteristics of the U2s then based in Australia). But he wanted out.
I have no idea where he picked up the idea
which was ultimately to liberate him from the RAAF, but it hardly seemed to fit in
with his normal line of work. Whatever the origin, his approach was based upon a
particular legal consideration, namely that in Australia at that time one was not
permitted to be both a serving member of the armed forces *and* a member of
parliament (or more particularly, in the case in hand, a person with an intent to
become a member of parliament). So Tony would have to nominate to stand for
election to the federal parliament, a modest enough ambition for someone with no
political associations or even interest, and one which would, much to his regret,
lead to an enforced resignation from the RAAF, something about which his superiors
might possibly harbour suspicions. But he did have one ace he could play -- his
home address. By chance, Tony lived in the electorate represented by a conservative
politician (the Honourable Peter Howson) who was a minister in the federal
government, and his ministerial responsibility included (and I am sure you are ahead
of me at this point) the RAAF.
So some superficial rationale could be
dreamed up for Tony, as a citizen who knew how the RAAF actually ran, to stand
against Peter Howson. Tony did have to spend Real Money to do it -- to lodge the
nomination fee, for example -- but he went further, and actually spent money having
printed up a how-to-vote card for distribution on election day. As Tony told it at
the time, this was where he learned about the real world of politics -- he had his
cards printed by a printer who actually was a supporter of a 'real' political party,
and as a consequence Tony's cards, delivered late, didn't look exactly the way he
had planned them.
On election day the mighty forces of the
MSFC, or at least some of the rabble associated with the MSFC, rallied in support of
their fellow member (who had no intention, of course, of becoming a Member). We
handed out the how-to-vote cards to intending voters (to the best of our abilities)
but alas the forces of reaction and habit proved to be too strong, and Tony was not
elected. But he was out of the RAAF. (I collected sets of how-to-vote cards
for all the candidates, and they formed part of a contemporary Spectator Amateur
Press Society mailing.)
Afterwards, representatives of both the
major political parties approached Tony to ask if he would like to be a candidate
for them at a future election, given that he had done relatively well without party
backing. But his major objective had been achieved, and he declined the offers.
The Driver
In a recent edition of his fanzine The
Rubbish Bin(n)s, Mervyn Binns recalls some of the Melbourne fans who have 'been
around' for a long time. I was pleased to see Roman Mazurak's name there.
Fans like Roman Mazurak rarely find their
names in fanzines, though I imagine that there are many 'Roman Mazurak's around in
fandom because there were so many of them in Melbourne fandom from the 1960s onwards.
Roman was at the 1999 Worldcon and we managed to have a couple of conversations
which reminded me of what the old times were like.
Roman's contributions towards fandom in
Melbourne have been of the necessary but usually invisible kind. Although the
Melbourne Science Fiction Club in the 1960s was probably the most successful SF club
Australia ever saw, it still needed the vital twin ingredients of money and
volunteers, and Roman was one of the moderately large group of science fiction
readers who contributed on both fronts. Every so often at the club Mervyn Binns
would call for volunteers for a working bee, and Roman would usually be found
amongst the volunteers. Later in the 1960s and into the 1970s, as sf conventions
became more popular in Australia, Roman and other fans like him made life a little
easier for struggling convention organisers by contributing money early -- and of
course effort at the conventions, but always behind the scenes.
In the real world Roman has been a train
driver. Being a train driver does not bar one from becoming an active fan, as
witness the sometimes-remembered-in-Melbourne James Styles -- although I feel Roman
was more serious about his work than James was, just as James was more serious about
'active fandom' than Roman was. As Roman pointed out to me at the Worldcon, an old
train driver (though he isn't that old) still has to work his shifts, and for
Roman that meant he could only attend parts of the Worldcon.
In the 1960s, as now, the active fans were
far outnumbered by those whose interest in fandom seemed slight and even peripheral.
Roman Mazurak is representative of all those quiet contributors who have stayed
around for the long haul while so many of the active fans of his early days have
vanished.
Sydney's Terrible Twins
Science fiction fandom in Sydney in the
early 1960s was a thing more or less unknown to those of us in Melbourne. It wasn't
until late in the 1960s that there were enough fans in Sydney who were willing to
have anything to do with the infidel in Melbourne, and one of the first of the New
Faces was that of Alf van der Poorten.
Alf van der Poorten! In the middle 1960s,
one of the most aggressive student politicians at the University of Sydney was a
young mathematician named Alf van der Poorten. Even today the name strikes fear (or
possibly terror) into the heart of Damian Warman, the laid-back Adelaide fan -- a
natural for organizing a relaxacon -- who typesets for the Australian Mathematical
Society. For a decade from the late 1960s, Alf was also actively involved in
science fiction fandom in Sydney, and for that matter was a member of the 1999
Worldcon (I imagine that if he attended the business session he would have given
Jack Herman hell, but I missed seeing him there at all, only discovering later that
he sat at the Locus table in the Dealers Room).
To those outside Sydney fandom it was only
natural to see Alf as one of a pair of twins -- the twin Doctors, as it were -- with
the role of Alf's partner in crime being played by Tom Newlyn. Alf's pure
mathematical status was balanced by Tom's working life as a Shrink; but what they
specialised in fandom was needling everyone else. Alf and Tom were twins in size
and hair-colour, as well as age and attitude, being shortish and with
reddish-hair.
When the Sydney Science Fiction Foundation
was established in the late 1960s, Alf and Tom were relatively early joiners. I
don't remember them being at the New Year's convention held in Sydney in a scout
hall in January 1970, and the photos I have from that convention suggest that they
both had better things to do at the time. But from that time on until after the
first Aussiecon in 1975 they were steadfast attendees at conventions in
Australia.
They added spice to the gatherings they
attended -- Alf by his pedantry, and Tom by his deliberate wickedness -- but by the
late 1970s they appear to have decided to skip science fiction fandom. One reason
may have been the rise of the younger generation of fans in Sydney, largely through
the university clubs of the time, whom Alf and Tom may have thought too juvenile.
That part of Sydney fandom certainly changed the atmosphere, and Alf and Tom were no
longer heard from -- at least until the 1999 Worldcon.
I missed their influence then, and seeing
Alf's name on the list of 1999 Worldcon members reminded me of part of what Sydney
fandom has lost. Australian science fiction fandom -- at least in the old-fashioned
sense -- passed through its peak (in terms of fan activity) in the days of fans like
Alf and Tom (and the others whose names appear above). It may be that their
departure from fandom was a symptom of that malaise which we call
middle-age.
Title illustration by Kip Williams
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