Bradford, UK
Bradford is a city in Yorkshire, Northern England, about 15 miles west of Leeds.
The first Bradford fan may have been Olive Robb, known for a debate with E. E. Smith in the letter column of Amazing Stories starting in 1932. She was resident in Liverpool at the time but had moved to Bradford by the time the discussion concluded in January 1933.
Albert Griffiths was the only Bradford-based attendee at the 1937 Leeds Convention. He was probably also a member of the Leeds branch of the Science Fiction Association.
Bradford became a more prominent fan centre from 1950 when Derek Pickles produced the fanzine Phantasmagoria and with first his sister Mavis Pickles and then his brother-in-law Stan Thomas. He and Mavis organised the NECON, the North-East Convention, on October 14, 1951. This was the first the first post-war convention outside London.
In its aftermath he formed the Bradford Science Fiction Association. By the time of London SF Con in May 1952 he reported they had 23 members. He also made a bid for Bradford to host the 1953 Eastercon, although the bid was won easily by London who had a home advantage. Many of the Bradford group attended the Mancon, also in 1952, but the club closed by the end of 1953, and Pickles himself had to leave fandom in 1955 because of ill-health. He would return in the 1990s.
Max Leviten worked at and perhaps owned Dell's which seems to have been a secondhand bookshop in the city.
Bradford has hosted two recent Eastercons, LX and EightSquaredCon, at the Cedar Court hotel on the outskirts of the city. The hotel has good function space, but not enough bedrooms, so overflow hotels served by shuttle buses were needed.
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