Don Allen

(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.

In a profile in the Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine v2 #4 (September 1955), Allen said he discovered fandom in mid-1953:

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, 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.

Links

• Don Allen in Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Dizzy [mid-50s]
• Loco [1955–58] (for OMPA)
• Satellite [1954-58]

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