Daphne Buckmaster
(March 1926 – April 23, 2009)
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Daphne Patricia Buckmaster (née Bradley) was a UK fan and fan artist active from the late 1940s to the 1960s. She joined British Fantasy Library some time in 1947/8 and began attending conventions in 1948 as 'the only unattached woman' at the Whitcon. She was a founding member of OMPA (number 9), and served as the treasurer in its second season 1955/6 and the Association Editor in 1960/1.
She came from Chatham in Kent (35 miles east of London). In "Fannegenesis" in Esprit #1 (December 1954, OMPA mailing 2) she described early experiences with Wells, Doyle and Haggard but
I did not live near one of the street markets which seem to have formed part of the early environment of most fen and thereby missed the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the American magazines […] until about the end of the war when my brother began buying the British Editions of Astounding and Unknown. For a long time I scorned them but, after continual urging on his part, I at last gave in and tried one. That, of course, was my downfall. Or uprising. How long it was between then and the time when I bought a copy of the first issue of New Worlds, which was to put me on the road to fandom, I do not remember.
She described seeing an advertisement for the British Fantasy Library in a prozine.[1]
The B.F.L. provided me with books and American Magazines in profusion and with the first fanzine I had seen — Operation Fantast. This was really something. At last – contact with other readers!
From a letter there she learned about the London Circle meeting near her work, although she initially found herself unable to come as a shy single woman, even with the accompaniment of her brother (who was as shy; he seems not to have progressed beyond the "avid reader" stage, so his name is lost to history). The prospect of the Whitcon in 1948 turned out more accessible. She subsequently became a regular at White Horse meetings, for a long time the only woman:
except for a couple of efforts which I wrote for Vin¢'s S.F.N., I settled down to the inactivity for which the White Horse was so famous.
Daphne married Ron Buckmaster on September 3, 1949[2] which he noted as "the first Trufan marriage"; she seemed to remember talking to him at Whitcon "although I was not to meet him again until a year later" (suggesting a rather whirlwind romance).</ref> He also wrote "Her insatiable feminine curiosity enabled me to lure my sister Pamela to the White Horse."[3] By 1954, the Buckmasters were living in married quarters in Woolwich barracks where Ron had served since 1948, and co-founded the jocular Woolwich Science Fiction and Vargo Statten Appreciation Society with Bob Shaw who was temporarily working in the neighbourhood.
Buckmaster began publishing her fanzine Esprit at the end of 1954: at first it was intended only for circulation in the new Offtrails Magazine Publishers Association (OMPA), but with the 13th issue in 1960 she decided to make it generally available. Issue 1 mentions 'This last year’s burst of frantic activity, with the production of 'i' and, now, the formation of OMPA'.
In Distaff #1 (September 1958, p. 2) Ethel Lindsay described her:
Daphne Buckmaster is the only femme fan[4] I meet, who can draw. She produced the cover, invented the new name,[5] and helped out with illos. When I first met her at the Manchester Con I had great difficulty believing that she was really married, she looked about 14 years old. She still looks very young and ingenious.[6]
Daphne herself recounted another story how she had to prove she was 22 at Whitcon to incredulous young fans.[3] Per Lindsay's description she was, or had been, taking night classes in statistics.
The Buckmasters moved to Scotland around 1960, driven by Ron's army posting. In August 1960, Daphne released the fanzine Hobo, and also began publishing Random for OMPA in September, of which three issues appeared, the second and third in 1961. She contributed art to other fanzines.
From May 1961 she was on the waitlist for FAPA. In April 1962 her address had changed to Wiltshire, seemingly reflecting another change in Ron's military posting, and she was back in London by June. She published Rackhamart (Spring 1962, with John Rackham's art) in the 31st OMPA mailing as her farewell to the apa after eight years. She finally topped the FAPA list in May 1966 when OE Bruce Pelz wrote:
Daphne Buckmaster (#1 last mailing) has been dropped. She was invited to fill the vacancy left by Al Lewis, and failed to respond (a belated response was received stating that her husband's new business is too demanding to allow her to join at this time.)
In later years she lived in Devon.
- Esprit [1954–61] (first 12 issues for OMPA)
- Hobo [August 1960] (for OMPA)
- Mobius Strip [1960] (with Ron Buckmaster and Chris Miller for OMPA)
- Random [1960–61] (for OMPA)
- Rackhamart [Spring 1962 one-off] (for OMPA)
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- ↑ Specifically, 'it was in either this [New Worlds # 2] or No.l.' but modern research has not identified the advert in either, even though it is alluded to in recollections of other fans as well. It remains to be determined whether it was in fact a different magazine of the era (Fantasy (Gillings)?), or possibly a separately inserted leaflet, not preserved in online scans.
- ↑ Science Fantasy News 4, December 1949 http://gostak.org.uk/sfn/SFN4.htm
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 These also from Esprit 1.
- ↑ Daphne herself actually had an 'aversion' to the term 'femme' from her school years, preferring 'fanne', at least in 1954 as explained in Esprit 1.
- ↑ I. e. for the former Femizine, which Lindsay was resurrecting as Distaff. However, the changed title was universally disliked by the readers, and it reverted to Femizine for the rest of its run.
- ↑ This is clearly meant as "ingenuous", i. e. innocent, child-like.
| Person | 1926—2009 |
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