Skyrack Book Service
Skyrack Book Service was a book and comic selling business operated by Ron Bennett, evolving out of his influential Skyrack newszine around 1967. It was variously based in Singapore, Belgium and the UK, offering mail order and later additionally trading from a shop in Leeds.
Bennett's Skyrack newszine had appeared regularly from 1959 to 1966 but after #93 (November 1966) there was a nine-month gap. New Worlds #170 (January 1967) carried a classified advertisement from Bennett offerings books and magazine for sale, albeit not explicitly using the Skyrack Book Service name at this point. In Skyrack #94 (August 8, 1967), he said:
As some readers will know I have of late been trying to establish myself as a book and magazine dealer. Because of an impending move which involves a new job working for the Ministry of Defence I hope to be in a position whereby I will be able to obtain material not usually freely circulated in this country, particularly American pulps and older magazines and pocketbooks.
The next issue did not appear for another nine months. #95 was published on May 1, 1968, and quoted both the familiar address in Harrogate, UK but also an address in Singapore where since September 1967 Bennett had been stationed with FARELF, the Far East Land Forces of the British Army. He said:
In last August's issue I mentioned that I had been establishing myself as a book and magazine dealer and that because of my new job out in Singapore I hoped to be in a position whereby I would be able to obtain material not normally freely circulated in the U.K., particularly American pulps and older magazines and pocketbooks. One difficulty always experienced by UK dealers is the obtaining of sufficient US dollars as and when they might be required. Well, having denuded Singapore and Western Malaysia of sf, and having bought extensively from the USA, I can now offer the hoped-for range of items, from prewar Astoundings to the harder-to-obtain Ace doubles. In addition I have a large selection of American comics, particularly precode issues, which might interest collectors. Also, my prices have not risen because of the sterling devaluation. If you would like to be added to my monthly mailing lists please drop me a line. I'm also interested in obtaining older sf and comics and can offer very attractive trade-in rates for these items.
It seems that among Bennett's mail order customers were two young British fans, Roy Kettle and Rob Holdstock, and he accidentally introduced them to each other. In a tribute to Holdstock[1], Kettle wrote:
Like a few of us here today, Rob was a fairly obsessive reader and collector of science fiction. In the 1960s, before the Internet made it much easier, he used to buy 20 year old American science fiction magazines from an English book dealer in Singapore. So did I. In 1967, a batch of magazines meant for Rob was sent to me by mistake but with his address included as well. One of the best decisions of my life was resisting the temptation to keep those magazines and instead send them to Rob. We made contact, him at Bangor University and me at Warwick.
In Skyrack #95, Bennett said he still had ambitions 'to re-establish Skyrack as a fairly frequent newszine' but nothing came of this. Instead, in October 1970 he issued Skyrack's European Fantasy Trader from an address in Belgium where he was now based with SHAPE, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. The bulk of the content was given over to a catalogue from the Skyrack Book Service although its first issue was numbered #96 as a continuation of Skyrack's numbering, given that it was 'highly unlikely that [Skyrack] newszine, which ran for 95 issues, will reappear'. As for this new venture:
We'd like to think that this European Fantasy Trader is filling a gap and is linking the various pockets of collecting fandom which are scattered around several different European countries.
Skyrack's European Fantasy Trader continued for three more issues numbered #97–99 until July 1971 when, in defiance of previous predictions, Bennett produced one final issued of the Skyrack newszine. This was also #96. Having now severed the idea of numerical continuity between the two titles, the next issue of Skyrack's European Fantasy Trader was #5 (October 1971). It would continue for many years, its title evolving into Skyrack's Fantasy Trader. It continued to be primarily a catalogue rather than a fanzine.
At some point, seemingly in the 1970s, Bennett returned to the UK and began to operate Skyrack as a (primarily) comics shop from the Merrion Centre in Leeds while continuing to issue catalogues. In an odd coincidence, the construction of the Merrion, which opened in 1964, had led to the demolition of Brunswick Terrace, the site of the clubroom of the pre-Second World War Leeds group. While in the city for business in the 1980s, Rob Hansen sought out the shop and noted that its sign used the characteristic lettering of the Skyrack newszine.
It's unclear how long Bennett continued to trade through the shop or mail order. He certainly took tables at convention dealers' rooms into the twenty-first century. He died in 2006.
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- ↑ 'A Tribute' by Roy Kettle at robertholdstock.com, undated but likely 2009. While it's not absolutely explicit that the dealer in question is Bennett, it seems highly likely.
| Store | 1967—???? |
| This is an SF bookstore page. When a floreat "fl." is listed it records the dates for which we have evidence and may not be the store's entire span. |
