Julian Parr
(August 3, 1923 – 2003)
Julian (Frederick) Parr was a UK fan active from the 1930s to at least the 1950s. He was a founder of the Stoke-on-Trent Science Fiction Club and the SF Club Deutschland and a member of the British Interplanetary Society, the N3F, the BSFA and the Fortean Society.
Parr founded the Stoke-on-Trent Science Fiction Club in 1939 and was a reader of Futurian War Digest from at least 1940. Through its pages he suggested the Fandom GPO circular correspondence system, and J. Michael Rosenblum created it in early 1941. Parr was called up for the Royal Air Force in early 1942.
In Then, Rob Hansen recounts that in the early 1950s Parr worked for the British Consulate-General in Düsseldorf. He contacted the pioneering West German fans and played a large part in the formation of the Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD), in 1955, having the member number 2. He reported on the Wetzcon, the first ever German SF convention in January 1956, for Triode #6 and in 1958 he was a founding member of the BSFA. He was a member of Loncon in 1957.
Harry Warner, Jr. wrote in A Wealth of Fable, chapter 17 called "Parr Value":
As the 50's were winding down, one tribute (in Sirius) to Parr said that he "made an essential contribution regarding the formation of German Fandom, and its foundation would have taken place years later without his active assistance and precious advice."
Parr was an enthusiastic Fortean, and thus a close collaborator and correspondent of Eric Frank Russell; he spread Forteanism in Germany.
In a letter to Then, Malcolm Edwards said that Parr's fanzine collection ended up in the Science Fiction Foundation library. While Blubuhs writes "He received the MBE — Member of the British Empire — in 1985 for his lifelong work in the foreign service", this has not been confirmed in the official lists, even looking in other years.
Anton Ragatzy[edit]
Parr used the pseudonym Anton Ragatzy at various points from the 1940s. In VoM #27 he writes (as Parr), 'When Anton Ragatzy forwarded VOM to me …'. Articles by Ragatzy appear in the Sol Reader (“Science Fiction and Poetry”, April 1962) and Alpha. Who's Who in Fandom of 1961 confirms that Ragatzy is Parr. It would have to be an extreme coincidence if the name were not intended to refer to the character of the unorthodox osteopath (either he cures you or cripples you) in the 1931 and 1939 UK film (and 1923 play) The Outsider.
- Julian F. Parr in Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Julian F. Parr as a Fortean, biographic article by Joshua Blu Buhs
- see also the brief "Julian Parr 1923–2003" by Wolf von Witting, CounterClock #14 (May 2013), p. 6, some more discussion and a Wetzcon reminiscence follows in #16
- Parr's obituary in German is in Fandom Observer 184
| Person | 1923—2003 |
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