Roberta Gray

(1921 – 1992)

Bobbie Wild (1950s). Courtesy of Rob Hansen.

Roberta “Bobbie” Gray (née Wild) was a UK fan, conrunner and fanzine publisher active from 1955 to at least 1988, first in London and from 1959 in Cheltenham. She was a founding member of the BSFA and one of the editors of its journal Vector. She also pubbed a long-running apazine, Vagary, for OMPA and was its OE in 1958-9.

She had been a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) — she described some of her experiences in Vagary — and first found fandom in 1955, joining OMPA in 1956 when the first issue of Vagary appeared in its ninth mailing.

She was the secretary to the committee of Loncon in 1957, in which respect she had to find a new venue when the original hotel, the Royal, had to be ruled out for financial reasons. James White met her at The Globe just before the convention:

I met Bobbie Wild, the Convention Secretary, an efficient, overworked and slightly harassed girl who said she had insured herself so that she could wrap a certain person’s blank guitar round his blank-blank neck with impunity. I wished her luck.

Ethel Lindsay in Femizine #10 described Wild's contribution to the Worldcon as 'prodigious' and Bob Madle in his TAFF report, A Fake Fan in London, said:

It should be mentioned that one person could invariably be found running hither and yon – upstairs, downstairs, in the lounge, on the phone. Yes, wherever one looked – one found Bobbie [Wild]. For Bobbie was Convention Secretary – a job tackled only by the hardiest.

At the convention itself, Wild was inducted into the Knights of St. Fantony and in a brief assessment of the Worldcon in Contact #9a, Walt Willis thanked the committee 'and in particular its Secretary Bobbie Wild whose tireless and efficient work is beyond praise.'

In 1958, she attended Cytricon IV and became one of the founding members of the BSFA, member number 34. in the same year she was initially one of the candidates for TAFF, the first British woman to stand, although she had to withdraw for health reasons. In Steam v4#4, administrator Ken Bulmer stressed that there were 'no other reasons', presumably as there had been suggestions in fanzines (e.g. Bob Pavlat's Dogie #3) that she had been insulted by Chuck Harris. She continued to publish Vagary in a burgeoning OMPA, contributing 93 pages during the year, and in February 1959, she helped Ella Parker to produce her first issue of Orion

Also in 1959, she was part of the London Circle's expedition to Cheltenham at Whitsun. Many of the London fans were in costume with Wild dressed as an Amazon. During the trip, she first got together with Cheltenham Circle member Bill Gray. They were married in September, and she moved to Cheltenham, becoming Bobbie Gray. In Vagary #12 she described moving into her new husband's home:

Then he asked if there would be room for my things in his study. I looked at his small study, smiled sweetly, and told him I had a typewriter and a duplicator, plus stencils and stacks of paper.

"I think I can fit them in," said Bill.

"Can you fit in six hundred books as well?" I asked.

When he picked himself up off the floor he suggested that he could turn the end room past the bathroom into a study. This was before he had managed to get the new bath for the proper room. The room he suggested had been used by the last tenant for odds and ends – I think it had been added to the house as an afterthought – and Bill had not used it at all. We got busy at the weekends, papered the walls, did some painting and Bill built a desk for me that an executive would not be ashamed to have. He also built bookcases, but since then he has gone out with a desperate look in his eye and bought another bookcase for me. (I wonder when I am going to find time to read them all?)

When he had completed the desk I said it was too nice to do duplicating on, so the next time I arrived home I found a duplicating bench fitted up in the study. It was a very solid piece of wood and I wondered where he had managed to get it from. It was the old door that he had taken from the bog, planed down, varnished and fitted with drawers. So now I am wondering if I am the only fan who does the duplicating on a lavatory door. Modern novelists would love a situation like that, of course, as that’s as far as their imaginations seem to go these days.

In the Autumn of 1959, shortly before her marriage and move, she took over the editorship of the BSFA's Vector from Terry Jeeves with its fifth issue. In handing over, Jeeves wrote in #4, 'I know that in Bobbie Wild, we need have no need to fear for the future of Vector'. She edited issues #5-7 handing over to Jim Groves with #8 in June 1960.

She was part of the all-female team who ran the 1960 Eastercon in London, a task made especially difficult when the hotel cancelled on the Tuesday before the convention. Working with Ella Parker and the London Chamber of Commerce she was able to find an alternative venue, and still find time to escort TAFF delegate Don Ford around London on the Wednesday. They visited the Tower of London and Ford later wrote 'Bobbie knew much about early British history and could rattle off the names and dates faster than I could comprehend'.

Writing in Vagary #12 in the Winter of 1960, Wild commented on her 'long silence in fandom', despite her seeming hyperactivity in the preceding years:

I seemed to be doing an awful lot of official stuff in fandom. Now I did this because I was asked by fans to do so, but it meant that I had to take fandom more seriously than it should be taken. It also meant that nearly every minute of my spare time was taken with fannish activities.

In the same issue she announced she had 'fallen heir' to Femizine after Ethel Lindsay had ended the title with #15. She solicited contributions but for whatever reason a further issue under her editorship did not appear.

In 1962, Vagary placed 10th in the Skyrack Poll for best British fanzine while Gray herself placed 8th as fan writer.

At the BSFA AGM in 1963, she was elected vice-chairman of the association along with Tony Walsh.

While Gray was less in evidence from the mid-1960s she continued to contribute Vagary to OMPA throughout the APA's decline in the 1970s. A 12-page issue is listed in Off Trails #87 in late 1977, seemingly the last mailing, and in 1978 OMPA president Ken Cheslin pronounced that he and Wild remained determined to give it 'one more go' (Checkpoint #92).

Her involvement in fanzines does not seem to have survived OMPA's demise, though she continued to attend Eastercons until at least 1988.

Rob Hansen, writing in Generation Femizine, suggests that Wild was 'more conservative than many UK fans of the period', perhaps because of her armed services background. Ethel Lindsay in Femizine #10 described Wild as 'our history and Greek mythology expert' and added that she 'became an expert rifle shooter while in the forces.' In 1957 she worked in 'a Government Shipping Department' (Vagary #3).

Fanzines and Apazines:

• BSFA Newsletter [1960]
• Sulfuryic [late 50s] (for OMPA)
• Vagary (for OMPA)
• Vector [1959-60] (#5-7)

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1957 — Lady of St. Fantony

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Person

1921—1992

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