Cheltenham Circle

The Cheltenham Circle (also known as the Cheltenham Group and the Cheltenham Science Fiction Circle) was a local group in Cheltenham, UK. It was founded in September 1956 by Eric Jones and ended in 1963, with its expiration noted in Vector #25. It organized the 1961 Eastercon and is perhaps best known as the organization that originated the Knights of St. Fantony.

Members

• Audrey Eversfield
• John Challoner
• Les Childs
• Keith H. Freeman
• Bill Gray
• Roberta Gray
• John Humphries
• D. C. Jones
• Eric Jones
• Margaret Jones
• Michael Ireland
• Peter Mabey
• Bill Nelder
• Nick Nichols
• Bob Parkinson
• Bob Richardson
• Norman Shorrock
• Tony Walsh
• Arthur "Doc" Weir
• Geoff Winterman

Clubroom

The Circle had clubrooms on the London Road just outside the town center. Geoff Winterman, a member from the 1950s, provided a short memoir of the club in the late '50s which describes it.

CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FICTION CIRCLE

Geoff Winterman’s recollections, 28th October 2021

Memories of stumbling across the Cheltenham Science Fiction Circle club rooms on London Road just out of the town centre: There used to be a Rolls Royce Dealer at the traffic lights nearby but in 1958 I settled for my trusty Lambretta. I’m not sure how I came to be walking up London Road that dark, wet autumn evening, but I suddenly glimpsed, up a weed strewn path leading to a decrepit Georgian terraced house, a flickering coloured illuminated sign:

“Cheltenham Science Fiction Circle”. 

I paused, before what was on the sign registered, I initially pictured some seedy strip-joint hiding away there.  Science Fiction! I was and still am an avid reader of SF, but up until that point had never heard of Science Fiction Clubs or of ‘Fandom’, or Groups or conventions. 

I cautiously followed the path to the flickering signed, then down some steps and though a door and into a basement room stacked high with hundreds of books – SF Books! I was in an Aladdin’s Cave of Science Fiction. Later to learn that this was the BSFA Library. I was greeting by Peter Mabey then the BSFA librarian assisted by someone who I remember as “Humph”. They were packing books for postal loan. That Peter Mabey, now in his nineties, and I am still in touch with him, via social media. When I last settling down to chat with him, in person, was at Novacon 40 in Nottingham some 11 years ago! Peter’s long life spans so much of what has happened in fandom, and his warm welcome that miserable night certainly drew me in. 

Through the library into the club room with that amazing wall smothered in graffiti and signatures of the then great and good of British Science Fiction and Fandom. The toilet tucked away behind a door in the corner that if you glanced up you were confronted with a booted foot seemingly coming down from the floor above! Audrey Eversfield was Secretary then, always busy making order out of chaos. I think at some point I fell in love with her but she went off to live in Paris! I did give her a ride on my  Lambretta though. SF artist Eddie Jones was about then – bit of a  character I recall. I remember Colin Kapp always sucking on his pipe. I was bursting with pride when he asked me to take his photo for the cover of New Worlds that was publishing one of his short stories. The photo was taken in the Cheltenham Science Fiction Circle club room. 

Keith (Freeman) I ‘think’ I remember, but certainly Barbridge Road I visited many times. In 1959 I gave up my job in the Lloyds Bank in Winchcombe to training in Cheltenham to be a teacher. At around that time my folks moved from Cheltenham to Cornwall so, though I was immersed in student life, Eric & Margaret were always there to offer friendship, support. I wonder if Keith remembers the “Green Lady” print on Eric & Margaret’s sitting room wall? Very popular at the time I recall.

So much has happened since that fateful evening when I was introduced to a whole new world of fannish folk. Since moving up to teach in Birmingham, the Black County and finally here in West Wales, I have been dipping in and out of the ‘Magic Kingdom’ for the last sixty years. Now retired here in Pembrokeshire I find I still have links with that ‘Magic Kingdom’. 

Just down the road live Greg and Catherine Pickersgill, and also nearby is my good friend David Redd, writer of numerous short stories and fan articles, who accompanied me to a number of conventions over the years. Peter Weston, before he passed away, made occasional pilgrimages down here to see us. Peter, I knew from Birmingham where he. Roger Peyton and Vernon Brown presided over the birth of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group and the Novacon series of conventions then meeting at the Imperial Hotel in the City Centre. A couple of issues of Peter’s  Speculation were  also collated in my dining room in Sutton Coldfield in the seventies, but I can’t remember why!

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Club

1956—1963

This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc. When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can!