Mancon

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Mancon, retroactively Mancon 1, was a one-day convention held October 5, 1952 at the Waterloo Hotel, Hightown, Manchester, UK. It was chaired by Dave Cohen with Eric Bentcliffe, Frank Simpson, Sid Klepper, Bill Jesson and Sandy Sanderson. It was the second post-war convention outside London following 1951's NECON.

Preparations[edit]

At least one bulletin was issued for 'The Manchester Science-Fantasy Convention', also referred to as 'The "Mancon" 52' which latter name seems to have won out. It's unclear when this was produced but seemingly they didn't have a date for the convention itself at this point. The bulletin also announced a 'design your own space-ship' competition and set membership of the Society at 1/6. The convention was promoted at the London SF Con of May 31–June 1, 1952 and Ken Slater mentioned it in Operation Fantast #12 (Spring 1952) at which point the date was set for 28 September 1952. Slater also mentioned an attending supplement of 5/- which would include 'a running buffet'. By the time the convention was advertised in Space Diversions #2 (August 1952) that date had moved to 5 October. This advertisement also announces the 'The Mancon Awards' for fan writer and fan artist to be presented at the convention.

Venue[edit]

The Waterloo Hotel is variously described as being in Hightown or Cheetham Hill. It had been used as a meeting place by the Nor'west Science Fantasy Club since 1951. It was seemingly still operating as a pub into the twenty-first century but was reported closed in 2010 and permanently closed in 2015 and converted to flats[1].

Attendees[edit]

There is seemingly no published membership list. 'The Liverpool Report'[2] estimated attendance as 'about eighty'. The following are either mentioned in contemporary reports or appear in photos. Attendees were mostly from Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford and other northern towns and cities.

Names marked * are believed to be family members of other attendees and not necessarily fans themselves per se. There was also somebody called 'Stan', other than Stan Nuttall.

The convention[edit]

Sandy Sanderson said there were eight exhibitions in the conference hall from:

The report in Space Diversions #3 has a slightly different list including:

Dave Cohen opened proceedings around 12:30 with an introduction of 'celebrities' and the committee, followed by a lecture from Frank Simpson on 'Alien Life' which turned out to be a spoof. The next item was a game of 'Twenty Questions' between teams from Liverpool (John Roles, Norman Shorrock, Lewis Conway and Stan Nuttall) and Manchester (Eric Jones, Eric Bentcliffe, Terry Jeeves and Sandy Sanderson) conducted by Simpson. That continued until a lunch break.

The game continued after lunch and was followed by a talk on Anglofandom from J. Michael Rosenblum covering the earliest days of fandom in the UK. Rosenblum was then joined by Derek Pickles and Eric Bentcliffe for questions from the floor. John Russell Fearn then spoke, followed by John Brunner, and then a play, '1966 and All That'.

A game of fantasy charades was interrupted by the appearance of Bill Jesson as the 'Man from Planet X', a 'mystery visitor' that had been trailed before the convention and which Sandy Sanderson thought 'rather amusing' and the Liverpool Report considered that 'after the great publicity and build-up before the con [it] came as something of an anti-climax'. Derek Pickles conducted the auction, with an interruption for the evening buffet. At the auction's conclusion a number of photos were taken of the whole hall and of the various local groups attending for inclusion in the souvenir book. Eric Bentcliffe then conducted a session with Terry Jeeves and Eric Jones naming three people they would want to have with them if they were marooned on an asteroid

Finally, some films were shown, including the non-fictional 'The Atom Bomb' (without sound) and 'Black Saturday', an amateur film produced and written by John Russell Fearn and directed by D. Peter Ogden. The convention broke up around 9:30.

A number of programmed items didn't happen. The winners of the 'design your own space-ship' competition and the 'Mancon Awards' weren't announced, seemingly through lack of interest. The former only attracted two entries and for the latter Paul Sowerby, writing in Post War, said that, the awards 'were not made because public opinion which was to act as judge wasn’t forthcoming'. The contemporary reports make no mention of Frances Evans's 'Future Fashions' illustrated talk, nor of the plays 'Exposé' by Sid Klepper and Bill Jesson or Fear by 'the Lancaster Group (presumably Ken Potter and Dave Wood). It is just possible that 'Exposé' refers to the appearance of the 'Man from Planet X', who'd been trailed as a mystery visitor. Conversely, the printed programme makes no mention of the films.

There is some suggestion that John Russell Fearn was a guest of honour with for instance Paul Sowerby describing him as a 'guest celebrity'. However, the balance of evidence, especially the lack of any mention of Fearn's guest status by other reporters and in official convention publications, suggests that he wasn't.

Publications[edit]

There was at least one bulletin and an eight-page programme booklet. There were plans for a souvenir book to be sent to all members and to that end a number of group photos were taken. If the souvenir book was ever produced no copies have been traced, although the photos at least survive.

Future conventions[edit]

Sandy Sanderson noted some planning errors 'that can and will be corrected next time. There will be a next time.' The Manchester group had already made a pitch for the 1953 Whitsun convention using the name Supermancon implying they saw it as in some senses a follow-up. This bid, made at the 1952 London SF Con and so before Mancon had taken place, was easily defeated by a London bid that became Coroncon. The Manchester bid returned at Coroncon and this time was successful with the Supermancon finally happening in 1954.

While the convention was considered a success by, for instance Sanderson and the Liverpool Report, the absence of London fans was noted. Eric Bentcliffe, writing in Space Times #10 (April 1953), noted that at the London SF Con a show of hands indicated 30 Londoners willing to travel to Manchester for the day yet in the end only one did so, and annoyingly history does not even record who that was[3].

The subsequent Mancons were all part of the Eastercon series.

Links

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  1. ↑ Waterloo Hotel, Cheetham Hill at camra.org.uk.
  2. ↑ Published in Space Diversions #3 (October-November 1952) with no individual author identified. Rob Hansen deduces that the author was John Roles as he and Tom Owens were the editors and Owens is referred to in the third person.
  3. ↑ It's pure speculation but it's possible Bentcliffe was thinking of John Brunner, then resident in Reading, either not appreciating that he wasn't from London or conflating it into a generic Down South.
  4. ↑ Despite being a British convention, the organisers used the US spelling.
first Mancon Supermancon
1952
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