Ron Holmes
(19?? – ????)
Ronald Holmes (usually going by Ron; some appearances emphasized the shortening with a period "Ron. Holmes") was a fan from Liverpool active in the 1930s and 1940s. He co-published Science Fantasy Review and later Science-Fantasy Review War Digest. He was a member of the British Fantasy Society (BFS) and a founder of the British Fantasy Library (BFL) and the first editor of its Booklist.
The Liverpool branch of the Science Fiction Association was created in June 1938 and Holmes joined 'just after the introductory stage when Eric Frank Russell, Les Johnson, etc., had created the group and it was about to fall apart' (quoted in Then). He attended the Second British Convention in 1938 and the Third British Convention in 1939. With Les Heald he produced five of the thirteen issues of Science Fantasy Review between May 1939 and January 1940, succeeded by the Science-Fantasy Review War Digest for another nine (there were two in March), or not quite:
Then and Beyond Fandom say Holmes was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, "assigned to a Pacifist Service Unit in Liverpool". However, in the September 1940 issue (#9) Holmes announced "I joined up for 7 years in the [Royal Army Medical Corps]" and "By the time that you get this your goldenhaired boy will be engaged." He turned over materials for the issue to be produced by J. Michael Rosenblum, who noted that the pass-over was faster than planned as "unforseen circumstances have prevented" Holmes to finish the run. (Rosenblum then subsumed the newszine in his Futurian War Digest.)
In FWD #2 (November) Rosenblum published anonymously description a brutal persecution of uncompliant objectors by their Colonel and Regimental Police
from a personal letter written by a personal friend of mine and I will absolutely guarantee its truth in every particular. It’s the treatment given to a C.O. in Liverpool, this September; a Leeds boy 21 years old who is as sincere a Pacifist as anyone I know. […] a more hideous caricature of justice than our local C.O. Tribunal would be difficult to imagine. Ask Ron Holmes who saw it in action for a few minutes, and left hurriedly while he was still in control of his temper.
The September timeline does not quite fit, nor the following mention of Holmes by name as seeing Rosenblum's local (i. e. Leeds?) tribunal, not to mention the victim being from Leeds; but then Rosenblum might have wanted to muddy waters in such identifying details (indeed he was investigated for distributing "seditious" material). Even if Holmes was just a witness of similar events, it would certainly explain his decision not to remain in the work units until the end of the War, as Rosenblum managed, and find – or be forced to take – an acceptable way out. (Should "boy 21 years old" refer to Holmes after all, he would have been born in 1918/9.)
Holmes also attended the Midvention in 1943 and the two Norcons over the New Years 1943-4 and 1944-5.
When the British Fantasy Society folded, Holmes and Nigel Lindsay formed the British Fantasy Library and published an official organ, Booklist. The first issue of Ken Slater's Operation Fantast was issued alongside it September 1947.
However Holmes was hospitalised and in 1948 dropped out of fandom altogether, although not before providing Walt Willis with his introduction to fandom outside Ireland. Willis saw an advertisement for the BFL in a prozine and wrote off for details. Holmes replied, sending BFL material and a copy of Operation Fantast leading Willis to contact Ken Slater.
Holmes was reportedly rediscovered by Ian Maule in the early 1970s and attended the Beyond This Horizon event in Sunderland in 1973.
- Booklist [1947–8] (for the BFL)
- He Said [1941] for FWD
- Review Section [1942–3] for FWD
- Science Fantasy Review [1939-40] (some issues with Leslie V. Heald)
- Science-Fantasy Review War Digest [1940] (with Leslie V. Heald?)
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