Ron Buckmaster
(???? – )
Ron Buckmaster was a UK fan originally from Kent active from the 1940s to 1960s. With his wife Daphne he was a regular attendee at UK conventions during the period.
Writing in Daphne's Espirit #1 in 1954, Buckmaster told how:
Every Saturday afternoon I walked four miles to Dover and made a beeline for the Americans stall in the market. Here I read frantically until Nemesis in a market apron with significantly jingling leather pouch approached. Three penn'orth of my heart’s blood would then purchase immunity for another hour and an Astounding redolent of ink - fresh ink. One mag was all I could buy but my elasticsided conscience allowed me stealthily to exchange the last week’s, inside my coat, for another ration to satisfy my ravening hunger.
He was a career soldier, joining the army '[a]s soon as I left school' and seeing service in Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, Somaliland, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Sudan and Egypt with 'the doubtful honour of being the only fan' in all of these places, at least to his knowledge.
However he didn't discover fandom until a chance encounter on a bus in Welling in what is now south-east London. Buckmaster was visiting his grandmother in 1947 when:
The bus stopped at the corner of Wendover Way. A moment later a raincoated, ferly figure sat beside me and opened an American ASF. 'You like that stuff?' I asked, tentatively displaying a BRE. 'Well, as a matter of fact', (would he say 'Well it makes a change from Westerns'?) 'I never read anything else - Neither do I – gabble – George 0. Smith - gabble – Isaac Asimov – gabble gabble – White Horse Thursday nights – gabble – Welling station got to go now. See you next week.' My body left the bus two stops later and plodded its sedate way homewards.
The Man on the Welling Omnibus was Vin¢ Clarke. Buckmaster started attending meetings at the White Horse and went to the Whitcon in 1948 where he met Daphne Bradly. They married in 1949.
Buckmaster remained in the army until the early 1960s and his service took him and Daphne to various locations in the UK including Scotland. They attended several UK conventions including Festivention in 1951, the first two Cytricons in 1955 and 1956 and Loncon in 1957 through to the 1961 Eastercon.
His sister was Pam Buckmaster who later married Ken Bulmer. He brought a brother, Eric, to one pre-1954 convention but with no thought for future fanhistorians he didn't say which one.
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