Fan Scene- CT 1979 July- September

 

July

`Invasion` is the headline of July’s issue which in time lag fashion reports on the 1979 Blackpool gathering which took place in May on Cup Final Day in Blackpool. More than 40 members from around the country converged on the resort and its Exhibition for a social weekend organised by J Jeremy Bentham.  Meanwhile Panopticon 3 is round the corner and tentative guests include Dick Mills, Graham Williams and Douglas Adams. Attendees will get to see Oceans In the Sky, the evocatively titled DWAS drama department film. This ambitious project is reported here to have taken three years to make at a production cost of £3,000 (which is something like £12,000 today).  Sets built include a Tardis console and it has a score written by Mark Ayers in his youth. Twenty actors appear in it and the Doctor is played by Leo Adams and the companion by Diane Woodley.

In his column Jan Vincent Rudzki discusses the different approaches to Doctor Who in the Sixties and Seventies including the way it was recorded, the use of special effects and the stories’ focus on the Doctor or otherwise. Probably more suited to a fanzine than the newsletter. Talking of which some of the fanzines available this month include `Fendahl` issue 4 with a John Leeson interview and reviews of recent stories, `23-11-63` issue 6 interviews Peter Purves and Mervyn Haisman, surprisingly in view of both not being known for doing lots of interviews. One of the things you notice looking back at old zines like this is how willing various people were to be interviewed about the programme by amateur publications. The Pen Pals service is still going strong and amongst the interests listed by people seeking such correspondence someone has put that her interests are “Writing, reading, SF, Music, Dulcimers”. Dulcimers as in the nineteenth century Austrian instrument? Now that is really niche.

August

Change is afoot for the August edition with a new team being brought in to edit CT and though Gordon Blows’ name remains in small credits on the back page he is not included in this new team which consists of Chris Dunk, Chris Slatter, David Saunders and Owen Parker. It’s a rather big team to produce what lately has been no more than six and frequently four A4 pages but then again it was all typed on a steam driven pully operated typing machine or something. This all seems to be taking place in the context of the `never to be mentioned in CT` DWAS Democrats, a group of well- known members who issued a manifesto demanding more democracy in the Society. They did so by sneaking a flyer into issues of `Tardis`. (see more about this palaver in the posts on this blog about the early years of the DWAS)

The new team get off to a somewhat familiar start running what is essentially the same Dalek story from March albeit with more facts including the return of Michael Wisher’s Davros and the debut of Lalla Ward as the new Romana.  There’s other news on the new season including the fact that the second story has been renamed `City of Death` and it credits author David Agnew as the same man who penned `Invasion of Time`. If only they knew!  K9’s new voice is identified as being provided by David Brierley.

Someone rattled by the feedback to the DWApathy story of a couple of issues back is J Jeremy Bentham who uses his column to suggest possible alternative ways of providing the information he does in his STINFOs. That stands for SToryINFOrmation btw. Fanzines available this month include the debut issues of `Continuum` which is “20 sides of visual and literal enjoyment” and `Type 40` which goes “beyond the series” and has a Robert Holmes interview. There’s another `Oracle` (how does David Howe manage to keep producing all these issues?) and issue 5 of `Fendahl` which talks to John Scott-Martin.

September

Sad news greets us this month with a report on the death of Malcolm Hulke, writer of some of the best loved stories of the early Seventies. I didn’t know he also wrote Crossroads novels and a political dictionary. Meanwhile the new season is finished recording and there are also rumours that Marvel Comics are planning some sort of Doctor Who publication. Interesting.

The membership fee is going up due to inflation affecting printing costs; the fee is rising by 25p to £1.75. Anyone going to PanoptiCon Three is invited to a social evening on the Thursday night at a place called The Paviour’s Arms. I’m sure 1979’s members were puzzling over what a Paviour is, well it is an archaic word for someone who lays paving stones. Of course if you are under 16 you may not buy alcohol. Incidentally the venue was reputedly London’s most compete Art Deco pub. It eventually closed and despite its interiors was demolished in 2003.

Fanzines this month include issue 3 of `Matrix` which interviews no less a personage than Jon Pertwee and looks at the Blackpool Doctor Who Illuminations, the first issue of `The Doctor Who Review` which boasts a Douglas Camfield interview, examines the programmes fortunes in Canada and includes some rare photos. Its 30p but looks to be worth every penny. On the back page of CT there’s an updated list of forthcoming Target book adaptations and reprints, at least 3 or 4 per month. The Writer’s Pool column asks where writers get their ideas from and runs through sources for some well known Doctor Who stories. Also it mentions some coincidences such as story in the 1972 Annual that featured a giant plant creature attacking a house. And the 1979 Tomorrow People Annual apparently included a story where a scientist invented a machine to bring dinosaurs to modern London.