Memory Hole Annex
The Memory Hole Annex (MHA) was a collection of convention material established by Pat McMurray around 1997. Inspired by the Memory Hole fanzine archive, its aim was to preserve and catalogue convention ephemera, including but not limited to souvenir books, progress reports, ReadMes, flyers, hotel booking forms, internal convention running documentation, T-shirts and badges. Its primary focus was on UK material but again this wasn't a limitation.
McMurray developed and expanded the collection over the next few years and by 2004 it had become significant in size. Ansible #206 (September 2004) reported that:
Pat McMurray can no longer cope with Memory Hole Annexe, a mass of sf con memorabilia 'held in trust for UK fandom', and was seeking some UK fan prepared to take charge of 3 cubic metres of material and 'promise to pass it on to someone appropriate when the time comes.' A rescue committee has since been formed.
The committee consisted of McMurray and Tim Illingworth. Much of the MHA was stored in Illingworth's garage in Ely and around 2006 some or most of it was passed to Peter Weston (per personal email from McMurray, September 2024). Weston was also ultimately unable to maintain the collection and it was dispersed around 2007, with some of the most ephemeral material – the flyers, hotel forms and internal convention running documents – being destroyed.
A website was maintained at www.cooky.demon.co.uk. This now redundant but accessible via Wayback Machine.
John Bray is now adopting a different approach, collecting convention paperwork, scanning it and disposing of the physical copies.
| Conrunning | 1997—2007 |
| This is a conrunning page. |
