Brumcon

Brumcon was the 1959 Eastercon, held March 27–30, 1959 (Easter weekend) at the Imperial Hotel in Birmingham, UK. The guest of honour was Kenneth F. Slater. The committee was Ron Bennett, Terry Jeeves, Bob Richardson and Norman Shorrock.

It was the tenth convention in the Eastercon sequence and the first of any kind in Birmingham, the second-largest city in the UK. Brumcon was the first Eastercon held under the auspices of the BSFA following the Association's creation the previous year. Membership was 60, an increase on the previous year's Cytricon IV but still well below typical membership in the first half of the 1950s.

Similar to Cytricon II and III (1957 and 1958 respectively), the name Brumcon wasn't formally used by the convention itself. The programme book uses the term 'National Science-Fiction Convention'. However, Ron Bennett at least did label it 'Brumcon' in the first issue of Skyrack.

Preparations

The BSFA was formed after a meeting at Cytricon IV in 1958 and at the same time it was decided that the Association would be responsible for the annual convention. The meeting also concluded that the 1959 event should be 'at the seaside' over Whitsun. The convention is not mentioned in the first issue of Vector but the second, in Autumn 1958, said the convention would again be over Easter weekend and invited members to indicate preferences for programme items. Vector #3 (Winter 1958) makes reference to an enclosed leaflet 'giving details of the annual get-together' but as of 2024 no copies have been traced. The issue itself does however confirm the venue as the The Imperial Hotel in the decidedly non-coast-adjacent Birmingham.

Membership rates were 5/- (BSFA members) and 12/6 (non-members). Hotel rooms were 27/6 and 30/- per night including breakfast although it's unclear to what these two rates relate.

Venue

The Imperial Hotel was on Temple Street in Birmingham. It later went through a few names changes – becoming the Imperial Centre Hotel, in which guise it hosted the first four Novacons in 1971–4, and The New Imperial Hotel – before being converted into offices.

Attendees

A membership list in the programme book lists 43 members, with two more as 'stop press' inclusions. It includes all members up to March 20, 1959, one week before the convention. In Vector #4 (Spring 1959), Eric Bentcliffe said 'The total membership at the Convention was 60, and 56 people actually attended the con.' The convention balance sheet in the same issue shows 40 paying 5/- (BSFA members) and 18 paying 12/6 (non-members) for a total of 58. There's a difference of two between Bentcliffe's total membership and the balance sheet. Ken Slater presumably didn't pay and so he accounts for one of them. Joyce Slater may have been the other although there is no evidence she was there and Ken Slater is listed as a member in the programme book while she isn't.

In the table below names marked (A) are known attendees, names marked (AN) are known attendees who are not on the membership list, and names marked (N) are members who are known to have not been present. The remainder, 10 people, may have attended and based on Bentcliffe's numbers apparently at least five of them did. Maddeningly, the combination of known members and know attendees adds up to 59, one short of Bentcliffe total membership. It would though seem that if both Bentcliffe and the balance sheet are correct then there was one more non-paying member.

1. Jill Adams
2. Barrington Bayley
3. Ron Bennett (A)
4. Eric Bentcliffe (A)
5. Brian Burgess (AN)
6. Alan Burns (A)
7. Bob Champion (AN)
8. Ken Cheslin (A)
9. Les Childs (A)
10. Dave Cohen (AN)
11. Geoff Collins (A)
12. Peter Davies (A)
13. Karl Dollner
14. Keith Freeman (A)
15. D. K. Fawcett
16. George Gorse
17. Barry Hall (AN)
18. Sandra Hall (A)
19. Peter Hammerton (AN)
20. Paul Hammett (AN)
21. Joan Hammett (AN)
22. David Hardy (AN)
23. Bill Harrison (AN)
24. Frank Herbert (A)
25. Terry Jeeves (A)
26. Eddie Jones (A)
27. Eric Jones (A)
28. Margaret Jones
29. Brian Jordan (A)
30. Mike Kilvert (A)
31. Ethel Lindsay (AN)
32. Jim Linwood (A)
33. George Locke (AN)
34. Ivor Mayne (A)
35. Ken McIntyre (A)
36. Archie Mercer (A)
37. Jill Micklethwaite
38. Michael Moorcock (N)
39. Stan Nuttall (AN)
40. Ella Parker (A)
41. Nancy Pooley (A)
42. Ken Potter (AN)
43. Bob Richardson (A)
44. Alan Rispin (A)
45. Phil Rogers (A)
46. John Roles (A)
47. Laurence Sandfield
48. Norman Shorrock (A)
49. Ina Shorrock (A)
50. Ken Slater (A)
51. Phil Sless (AN)
52. Pete Taylor (A)
53. Norman Wansborough (AN)
54. Norman Weedall (A)
55. Arthur "Doc" Weir (A)
56. Peter West (A)
57. Cyril Whitaker
58. Bobbie Wild (A)
59. Jack Wilson (A)

Ken Slater commented in Vector #4 that 'the convention was markedly noteable for its total lack of "pros" connected with the publishing/writing world'.

Notable first-time convention attendees include Ken Cheslin, Keith Freeman, David Hardy, Jim Linwood and George Locke.

The convention

Fans began arriving on Friday and Ron Bennett reported that:

the first news that greeted me when I walked in the hotel in the company of Terry Jeeves, Archie Mercer and Phil Rogers, all of whom I had met on the train, was that there had been a mix-up in arrangements concerning the provision of alcoholic refreshments and that the bar closed at 9.30. To complete the dismal picture, the hotel itself seemed to be disappointing for a three star AA rating. Quite apart from the frayed stair carpets and dingy decorations, the service was of the standard normally associated with a hotel in the western backwoods at the turn of the century. This point alone, combined with the hotel's high prices, decided fans to eat out.Aporrheta #10 (April 1959).

Saturday opened with an OMPA meeting and then an official welcome from Jeeves and an introduction of guest of honour, Ken Slater. The first item was an 'extremely ragged' Science Fiction Twenty Questions with Jeeves as quizmaster. A tea-drinking competition was won by newcomer Peter Davies, followed by – in an an odd and yet quintessentially British piece of scheduling – a tea break. This allowed fans to visit Slater's bookstall and see Ken McIntyre's five-foot-by-three-foot 'Convention Cartoon' and other artworks.

Bennett delivered a slide show about his TAFF trip of the previous year with 'The slides ... projected in a most unfannish manner, i.e. right way up, and in the right order'. This was followed by a London group play, acclaimed 'hopeless' by Brian Jordan, and an auction conducted by Bob Richardson. Jeeves, Eddie Jones, and Richardson were respectively awarded first, second and third prizes in the artwork competition. Finally, a fancy dress competition was won by a vampiric Sandra Hall. The programme had told of a 'Russian Beer Drinking Contest ... which probably is not quite what you imagine it to be' but as it didn't happen the members remained in ignorance, as do we.

Sunday's programme began with the BSFA's first AGM. Officers gave reports and new officers were elected: Ken Slater (chairman); Arthur "Doc" Weir (secretary); Archie Mercer (treasurer); Roberta Wild, assisted by Sandra Hall (publications). Curiously, Ron Bennett reported that:

New Worlds was voted the best British SF magazine, Astounding the best US magazine, and Triode the best British fanzine. Aporrheta tied with Hyphen for 2nd place.

It's unclear exactly what these awards were beyond a vote of the meeting.

After lunch, Doc Weir spoke on Atlantis, followed by the playing of tapes including the Liverpool Group's 'Last and First Fen. There was then a further auction, this time for TAFF, with a painting by Jack Wilson being sold six times, and the screening of a number of fan films.

First-timer Brian Jordan said, 'The con was not exactly like I'd expected it to be. Some things were more so, some less. But, it levelled out at a wonderful time'. Another first-timer, Ivor Mayne, enjoyed it too, but:

All the same I felt there was something lacking. I've just realised what it was: where were all the BNF's? I know that fandom needs new blood, and you could have called this the Bloodcon since there were so many new faces there, but where were the BNF's apart from those who had to be there because of their positions on the concommittee or the BSFA?

One of those BNFs was Ron Bennett who wrote in Skyrack #1:

I think it only fair to mention that while I contested the Association's implication that British fandom needed such an organisation in order to survive, I do congratulate the BSFA on the way it has gone about achieving its aims. There were several new faces present at the BrumCon, all of whom have been brought into fandom by the BSFA. Nor were these newcomers, as might have been expected, stuffy. They fitted in well and were most interesting to talk to.

Peter Weston, not then active in fandom, offered a retrospective assessment in Prolapse #4 (December 2006). Weston noted the decline in convention attendance from during the Kettering years, something the creation of the BSFA was supposed to arrest. However

[The convention] was supposedly making an effort to cater for newcomers, but in practice the committee was continuing along the old track in which everyone knew everyone else ...  If the objective really was to run a convention about science fiction with the aim of attracting SF readers into fandom, then Brumcon has to be regarded as a failure.

Brumcon may have been an operational failure in Weston's eyes:

but total success in the only area that really mattered; being able to welcome new fans into the community. Brumcon was the first of the modern conventions and it set the scene for everything that would follow. It even made a profit; a surplus of £14.8s.4d on a total income of £41.18s.8d. 

Publications

Some information was provided in Vector #2 and #3 with most of the details appearing in a leaflet enclosed with #3 that sadly hasn't been traced. A 36-page 'Con Programme' was published and post convention reports were published in Vector #4.

Future conventions

There had been some discussion of the convention site for 1960 at the BSFA AGM with Ron Bennett suggesting that Harrogate could have a suitable hotel. However, 'The question was left open'. It would be picked up in the pages of Vector.

Links

• Rob Hansen's page on the convention at fiawol.org.uk.
• Programme Book at fiawol.org.uk.
• Vector #4 at fanac.org.
• Disappointment at Brumcon! in Prolapse #4 at efanzines.com.

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Cytricon IV	Eastercon	London
	1959

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