Don Allen
(May 20, 1937 –)
Don Allen was a UK fan, fan editor and fan artist from Gateshead and later Newcastle-upon-Tyne active from the 1950s. He was a founder of the North East Science Fiction Society (NESFS) and a member of the Gannets and of OMPA. He was to have managed the British Branch Office of the ISFS but had to withdraw for family and professional reasons[1].
In a contributors' introduction in New Futurian #4 (Spring 1955), Allen said that when he was 12 years old:
... I took an interest in the astronomy and s-f. Thru' an astronomical incident which I observed I got into the astronomical world, attended college for lectures etc., visited famous north-east observatories and even helped to erect one. In 1952 I was the guest by invitation of the Royal Astronomical Society to attend their annual reception and dinner. Planet Stories introduced me to s-f and I kept on reading the stuff with more and more interest, then in late 1953 I discovered fandom.
In a profile in the Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine v2 #4 (September 1955), Allen added:
I started off my fannish life as a letter-hack. I wrote letters to all magazines that featured a letter column and thus, on getting my name and address into print I started to receive a thin trickle of fanzines.
Allen had written a letter to Authentic Science Fiction in October 1953 which put him in touch with local fan Ted Mason. They obtained contact information for other fans in the area from Vin¢ Clarke and Ken Slater and a first meeting of the NESFS was held on March 26, 1954, at the Lampton Arms in Chester-le-Street.
He published three fanzines, was art editor for two more[2], and contributed art and writing to others. He had two non-fiction pieces published in prozines and reportedly cartoons too although the latter aren't credited in ISFDB.
His first convention was Cytricon in 1955 and he was a member of Tynecon in 1974.
Checkpoint #49 (May 1974) reported that he was planning to reform the NESFS but seemingly nothing came of it.
In the twenty-first century he was an occasional correspondent of Relapse.
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| Person | 1937— |
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