Penelope Fandergaste
Penelope Fandergaste was a pseudonymous author of a column ‘The Old Mill Stream’ that appeared in Aporrheta, Foop, Scottishe and Erg. In 1960 Fandergaste was identified as Ron Bennett.
The Fandergaste column, subtitled ‘A Country Column of City Life’, first appeared in the debut issue of Aporrheta in July 1958. In #2 Ethel Lindsay speculated that the author was Bobbie Gray and in #3 Gray denied this (via Ella Parker) while editor Sandy Sanderson confirmed it wasn’t him while somebody else suggested to Archie Mercer that the author was Vin¢ Clarke. In #4 Ron Bennett disingenuously wondered if it might be Ellis Mills while in #5 Chuck Harris and Bryan Welham thought it might be Sid Birchby while Barry Hall proposed Alan Dodd. Ethel Lindsay was now detecting ‘faint touches’ of Chuck Harris, Belle Dietz thought it was Ken Slater, and Archie Mercer suggested ‘Penelope’ might be trying to pretend to be him and ‘she might well turn out to be Ron Bennett’.
In the 1959 Skyrack poll Fandergaste polled ninth for Best British Fanwriter.
In Habakkuk #4 (June 1960) a letter from Ron Bennett said, ‘I don’t mind admitting to having written the first couple of instalments but since then… Your guess about there being several contributors is as good as any, I guess.’
Fanac #61 carried the news that ‘Ted White mentions that Ron Bennett has admitted to him that he (Bennett) wrote all the Penelope Fandergaste columns. Hmm.’
In a letter to Banana Wings in 1999, Ted said, ‘I recall Ron, as the 1958 TAFF winner, asking various of us what we thought of “Penelope” and her column, encouraging us to speculate over who “she” might be, and never giving the slightest hint that “she” was he. Around 1960 I found a couple of clues which suggested to me that Ron was “Fandergaste.” Rather than just confront him with my suspicions – which he could easily deny, if he wished – I wrote to him to ask him what he was going to do, “Now that the news is out that you’re Fandergaste,” presenting him with a fait accompli. His response confirmed the truth.’
In the 1990s Fandergaste/Bennett revived the column in Terry Jeeves’s Erg. As late as July 2007 Arnie Katz was still confusing the issue by confidently asserting in Vegas Fandom Weekly #99 that Fandergaste was F M Busby while Peter Weston seemingly only learned that Bennett was behind the pseudonym when he found an old issue of Fanac in 2009.
