Fan Scene- CT 1981 Part 2

April

Positive Feedback is the main title as the letters page moves to the front in a clearly light news month. However most of the letters are not that positive. “I dislike CT’s new title and logo”, “There is little to be pleased with about the new bulletin”, “don’t bring up the topic of DWApathy again”, “What is wrong with our dear BBC.” Oh dear the members are not happy though you have to admire Gordon B printing so much stuff that criticises what he’s doing even if you sense he likes a good argument. Also there seems to be a missing issue of the DWAS fanzine `Tardis`. “the parcels bringing it from Edinburgh to London for distribution having gone astray.” There’s a story here that would never be followed up possibly involving a fiendish alien plan!

Perhaps to salve this sour atmosphere, John Peel (no not that one) has an article about Doctor Who and religion and also a story about how the theme music is being used to alert staff at a London night club about trouble. Mmm, this is the April issue isn’t it?

Zines advertised this month include issue 6 of `Gallifrey Times` at the precisely calibrated price of 42p, issue 15 (!) of `Fendahl` which includes a look at the Madam Tussaud’s Doctor Who Experience`, `Web Planet` issue 6, a double issue of `Frontier Worlds` including heh-heh-heh an Anthony Ainley interview and those Ref Dept Plotlines which breach the pound barrier at £1.20.

May

In which that doggy bag story comes back to bite Gordon Blows with JNT declaring: “I did not pick up a doggy bag of ideas and scripts. I personally commissioned all the stories of this season though `State of Decay` in a very different form existed as an episode one only which was left by Graham Williams”. Though nothing more is said this issue, you sense this may have been the tipping point for Mr Blows…

Meanwhile the news that next season won’t start till January 1982 was revealed. Despite the plethora of fanzines, one editor Paul Trainer announces he’s giving up his title `Galaxy Four`. “You pay out of your own pocket, spend frustrating hours at a typewriter, reel at VAT charges at Prontaprint and then have a nasty taste in your mouth after sealing goodness knows how many envelopes – and all for what is more or less just an ego trip.” Crikey, Paul would love the Internet!

Clearly other editors disagree as there are stacks of ads this issue for `Frontier Worlds`, `The Time Meddler`, `Alpha-Omega`, `Moonbase`, `Shada`, `Vortex`, Experiential Grid` and `Web Planet. Prontaprint must have been loving 1981!

Elsewhere you can win a segment of the Key to Time. The ad is non specific but you have to fill in the stories from which the clips in the fourth Doctor’s regeneration were taken from. Oh and those missing `Tardis` issues have turned up but where? We are never told.

June

“Hi there” begins the June issue and you can tell someone else is at the helm. This is not stern Gordon Blows speaking but cheery Gary Russell who says that the editor is taking “a well -deserved rest” this month. What; after 5 issues?! Something is afoot here but whether the situation had already been reached whereby Gordon B was not coming back or whether it was still in limbo, Gary makes a case for taking over by presenting an issue that for a start puts news back on the front page and secondly introduces a startling header typeface. He’s lucky as well because there’s tons of news- Christopher Bidmead has left to  be replaced by Antony Root, there’s to be a new title sequence for the new Doctor, there may be a run of repeats during the summer plus the fourth story title is announced as `The Visitation`.  There’s also an account of the end of a 10 month novelists’ strike involving WH Allen taken from the London newspaper `The New Standard`. Amusingly whoever wrote it speculates on how novelists can strike; “withdraw their adjectives?”. What is thankfully missing from the issue is any attempt by Gary to push his own agenda or angle. He reports the news and that’s that.

He has a page full of press cuttings of recent vintage plus adverts for zines such as issue 5 of `The Space Musuem` edited by Andrew Byford from Suffolk that seems jam packed with material, issue 16  of the ever present `Fendahl` which includes an interview with `Full Circle` writer Andrew Smith and a comic strip entitled `Smell of Death`. There’s another issue of `Gallifrey`, a special Tom Baker one no less. A sign of those times is a little notice which says that for any items ordered through the Society “payment may not be made in stamps. All monies of less than £1 should be paid for in the form of Postal Orders and not as a cheque.” Bless.

(P.S Apologies for the lack of  photos- these issues were printed on such thin paper that the more you improve the contrast the more you can see the print on the other side of the page! Clearly they did this to stop people scanning them 37 years later!)