Bert Barton
(November 6, 1919 – December 1991)
Herbert Charles 'Bert' Barton was a fan and apparently pro from Birmingham, UK active in the 1940s and 1950s. He was the founder of the The Birmingham Science Fiction Club in 1949 and an article in the Evening Despatch of Wednesday, October 8, 1952, described his role as organiser of the group and also said that he 'writes modern space-fiction under various pen-names.' Sadly, to date nobody has been able to identify what those pennames were.
He is not listed in Ron Bennett's Directory of Science Fiction Fandom for 1955.
There is one possible further reference to Barton. In 1999 The Independent newspaper published a review of Scenes from Death & Life by William Cooper[1]. This was the last in a series of (non-genre) Scenes from... novels going back to Scenes from Provincial Life in 1950. The review refers to an appended interview with the author:
Graham Tayar[2] remembers the day when news of the first book's existence reached the group of aspiring writers who frequented the Kardomah cafe in Birmingham's New Street. 'Kid,' a writer called Bert Barton exclaimed to Tayar, 'It's us!'[3]
Was this our Bert Barton and even the The Birmingham Science Fiction Club? This Barton is an aspiring writer in Birmingham. The exchange took place in 1950 or soon after in a cafe and the Evening Despatch article said the Club met in a restaurant. Tayar was born in 1933 and so would have been about 17, so if it's our Barton he would have been much older and would plausibly refer to Tayar as 'kid'. Even if so it doesn't tell us that much more about him.
Links
- Bert Barton at bearalley.blogspot.com.
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| Person | 1919—1991 |
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