The Penitentiary
The Penitentiary or The Pen was the nickname given to two flats occupied by Ella Parker and Fred Parker in the Kilburn area of north-west London. The first was at 151 Canterbury Road and the Parkers lived there from at least 1946 to 1963 although Ella's involvement with fandom only dated from 1958. The second was at 43 William Dunbar House, Albert Road and Ella lived there for the rest of her time in active fandom and possibly until shortly before her death in 1993. The name is a pun derived from Parker Pen company.
These flats – the first would be better described as a two-storey maisonette – were the focal point of London fandom in the early 1960s. Jim Linwood said that the 'regular Friday night meetings at their height in the early sixties were much more popular than the Globe'. The meetings ran from 1960 to 1964.
The Canterbury Road location was described in detail by Bruce Burn in Prolapse #9 (November 2007):
Ella shared the flat with her brother Fred, and as her involvement with fandom grew, so it made inroads into her home, but both she and Fred were hospitable to every intrusion. Eventually, the main room became a place for fanac, dominated by an electric Gestetner in front of the windows that overlooked Canterbury Road. In one corner was a bed, used mostly as a couch by visitors, but also the overnight resting place for many a travelling fan. Against one wall was a table with a mirror behind it, and the other walls were mainly backgrounds to an assortment of chairs and stools and small tables or boxes. And what a background! The walls were covered by light tan wallpaper with thin vertical stripes in shiny gold with a flocked design reminiscent of Edwardian flower vases. On it, Ella had hung framed pictures and original sketches and cartoons, and numerous odd mementos, including plaster mouldings and at least one toy reptile. The other rooms of the flat were spread over two and half floors with a narrow stairwell providing a spiral connection between them. A curiosity was a basin with running water halfway down the stairs from the main room, alongside a small toilet cubicle. Beside the fanac room was a bedroom which I recall was used as a television watching space, and upstairs were Ella and Fred's own bedrooms. Somewhere there must have been the usual facilities of bathroom and kitchen, but I can't picture them these many years later, and am told by Jim Linwood that the place was known as a 'cold water flat' which apparently would lack the usual amenities. Later, about the start of 1962 [actually 1963], Ella would move to a tall apartment block, the William Dunbar Tower, built by the local council. I recall a working bee to move some of her gear from the old Pen to the new one, a two bedroom flat on about the eight or ninth floor of the building, with a view from a small balcony looking over the site of the old Pen. It was that near! In the main room of the original Penitentiary, the Gestetner was in constant use, producing copies of Orion, Ella's personal fanzine, SFCoL publications, Vector, and innumerable other fanzines including the original Atom Anthology and Parker's Peregrinations (The Harpy Stateside) about Ella's long USA trip in 1961.
The last visitor to this first incarnation of The Penitentiary was Birmingham fan Cliff Teague. He planned to drop by a meeting but didn't know that the Parkers had vacated the property. Finding the place derelict, he broke in and found two fanzines addressed to Ella, Inside and New Frontiers. He took them back to Birmingham where they were a formative influence on Peter Weston's publishing career.
Arthur Thomson did the honours for their new address, 43 William Dunbar House is Compact #2 (June 1963)
Pressing the door bell brings a shadow looming up on the frosted glass upper panel of the door, and it opens. Inside there is a corridor stretching way up the length of the flat, with other doors leading off it. To the left of the front door is a coat-rack with about 40-50 coats on it. I'm only guessing that these are all hung on hooks, there could be several young neos under it all holding the coats up; I don't know. Having managed to successfully get your coat to stay put on top of the pile you make your way up the corridor, past the two doors that turn out to be Fred's and Ella's bedrooms, and at the end of the corridor are three doors leading to the bathroom, kitchen and living room. The bathroom has, besides all the usual sort of stuff a bathroom should have, a set of defective weighing scales that put the wind up all the femmefans who nip into the bathroom during their visit as a result of the innumerable cups of tea one is forced to consume at Ella's. The kitchen holds a large washing machine, fridge (ice-box), and cooker, as well as a pile of teacups a mile high. The living room is jampacked wall to-wall with fans all holding large mugs of tea and trying to ignore the high-pitched 'Wewhheeeeeeeeeee', that issues from the central heating system without stopping. On one of the outer walls there is a large glass door that leads out onto a small balcony ((it holds eight people – Ella)) clinging to the side of the building. Fans have been known to venture out on to it but, never in a high wind. The position of the furniture in the rooms is at present constantly being changed around. Fred has been moved into and out of every room in the flat before finally being established in his haven of refuge from visiting fans, in the small bedroom half way down the corridor. In Ella's room, and nearly every other place in the flat, lie piles of books, fmz, letters, tapes, tubes of ink, duplicating machines, tape recorders, cameras, mascots, trophies, plastic models, imitation spiders, bamboo poles, foldup putaway tables that are neither folded up or put away, odd fan guests, visitors, Council men, telephones (KILburn 1422) and pieces of foam plastic that will, no doubt, come in useful for something one of these days when Jimmy Groves gets round to them after having finished putting up curtain rods, pelmets, bookcases, shelves, hooks, light fittings, racks (not the torture variety, despite what you've heard), and all the other gimcracks that seem to be necessary for the continuance of fannish life for Ella Parker. Even so, 43 Willum Dunbar hasn't yet acquired that fabulous fannish air that so graced 151 Canterbury Road, but give her time; Ella's working on it.
In November 1967 the London Minicon was held in a small hall at the base of William Dunbar.
| Venue | 1960—1964 |
| This is a venue page, covering buildings from 4-star hotels to slan shacks. Please include only structures of major fannish significance. See Standards for Venues. |
