Julian Parr

(August 3, 1923 – December 2003)

Julian (Frederick) Parr was a UK fan active from 1938, after the WWII in Germany. He was a co-founder of the SF Club Deutschland and a member of the British Interplanetary Society, the N3F, the BSFA and the Fortean Society. He also used the pseudonym Anton Ragatzy, see below. He announced gafiation after a SFCD feud in early 1959, but never really left fandom.

Parr founded the Stoke-on-Trent Science Fiction Club (giving the date as 1938) to better acquire and share pulps with other teenage readers. His first fanzine contribution is reportedly “Hint on How to Write Science-Fiction”, The Fantast #8, May 1940. He was a reader and correspondent of Futurian War Digest by the same time if not earlier. Through its pages he suggested the Fandom GPO circular correspondence system, and J. Michael Rosenblum created it in early 1941. Parr was called up for the Royal Air Force in early 1942.

In 1947, Parr served in Cologne Intelligence Section, British Army of the Rhine; in spring 1949 in the Allied Control Commission in Germany. In Then, Rob Hansen recounts that in the early 1950s Parr worked for the British Consulate-General in Düsseldorf. Buhs notes that around 1953/4 "he had returned to London for a while — he was between German gigs". Then he worked for the Britsh Chamber of Commerce in Germany; by 1961 he was living in nearby Cologne (Köln) and listed his job as "market research".

In late 1940s Parr became an active Fortean, and thus a collaborator and correspondent of Eric Frank Russell; he spread Forteanism in Germany.

SFCD

Per Hansen:

He soon got in touch with the pioneer West German fans of the time, telling them about fandom in other parts of the world and assisting them as they began to build their own. In 1954 he learned that a West German publisher was going to start issuing a series of translations of British and American SF and managed to convince the editor, Walter Ernsting, to include a letter column which he hoped would help a fully-fledged fandom to develop in the country. This column, 'Meteoriten', helped inspire the formation of West Germany's first nationwide fan group, Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD), in 1955, a formation that Parr played a large part in. The SFCD grew phenomenally, and soon affiliated with the many local groups springing up across the country. The fully-fledged fandom that Parr had hoped for had been born. 

Specifically, SFCD was founded on 4 August 1955 in a Frankurt pub (lost to time) by Ernsting, his wife Trude, Parr, Raymond Z. Gallun and editor/translator Walter Spiegl on the occasion of the American's visit; it seems Forrest J. Ackerman was not present but may have been in Germany at the time, and certainly joined the club soon. From this small beginning, SFCD snowballed extremely fast.

Parr had SFCD member number 2, after chairman Ernsting, and became the "foreign relations officer"; reports differ whether he sat on its board, SFCD website says that in his generosity and modesty, Parr never ran for an office and served as an advisor. He reported on the Wetzcon, the first ever German SF convention in January 1956 (where he gave a talk on "SF in England"), for Triode #6 and in 1958 he was a founding member of the BSFA. He was a member of Loncon in 1957.

Science Fiction Times #322 (1 September 1959) brought within a block of GERMAN SCIENCE-FICTION NEWS by Rainer Eisfeld an item "JULIAN PARR GAFIA":

AUGSBURG, 28 July, (CNS) - Julian Parr, German correspondent of Science-Fiction Times, left active fandom in May. […] Longtime member of the Board of Directors of the SFCD/E, he carried through the German HUGO polls from 1956 to 1958. Compilation of the first German science-fic­tion book catalogs, Die Zukunft im Buch [The Future in a Book], was mainly his merit.

The Hugo was a German readers' poll/award for the best novel of the year, clearly inspired by the Worldcon Hugo, for naming which Parr had asked permission from Hugo Gernsback.

It is worth noting that even when Parr provided his entry for Who's Who in Fandom (1961), he repeatedly stressed the date:

one-time member of all German SF clubs until 1958 […] Attended German national cons in 1955 [sic!], 1956 and 1957 […] complete collection of all West German fmz published up to 1958

There was no mention of the reason for such an abrupt and loud gafiation in SFT. Buhs notes Parr repeatedly mentioned being very busy, suggesting some degree of fafiation. However, Eisfeld's first SFT item said

On February 28th, Walter Ernsting, president of the SCIENCE-FICTION CLUB EUROPA, left the SFCE and became president of the then founded SCIENCE-FICTION UNION. The SFCE remained the strongest organization with some 1500 members, but to the already existing clubs a new one has been added. Only now the resulting quarrels have calmed down somewhat. However, the development still has not reached its end. What started out as one organization in 1955 remains split and restless.

Parr could not have avoided being involved in the feud, whatever the crux of the matter was and on whichever side. Sirius 1 (June 1959) brought parts of Parr's gafiation letter, received after the events described happened at Nordwest-Con in Hannover. He said he would gafiate "at least for a year or two":

I have never worried about any one organisation having a monopoly of the fans [Walter Ernsting tried to get such a monopoly; remark of the editor] (only a very tolerant one could ever achieve it); nor do I attach any great importance to names of organisations, to statutes, to negotiations, to intrigues, to feuds, to accusations of 'business' making in fandom, etc. -- my only criterion in all this is: what creative work is this or that author, publisher, translator, agent or fan doing […]
[…] every manifestation of fanaticism, of particularism, of perfectionism, of personal peevish­ness, of pride or ambition (personal), and of general bad temper […] destroy the work that has been done by others. I like to think that, although I have done little creative in the field (I have published no fanzine, translated no story, written no fiction); on the other hand I can claim to have done little harm in the way I mentioned above.
And I am convinced that all these intrigues and disputes (AND THE CONCLUS­ION REACHED AT HANNOVER WILL NOT, I PROPHECY, BE THE END OF THEM) have damaged SF fandom in particular and SF in general by repelling some of the best elements in fandom and discouraging them from active participa­tion.
For this reason, I'm not really sorry that I'm fading into obscurity myself.

Sirius editor Erwin Scudla was on very bad terms with Ernsting, as both his remark and the following item show, so we might presume that Parr writing to him meant he was siding rather with him, too. However clearly there was not much bad blood left; the dust settled comparatively fast, SFUE withered and at an unknown later time, Parr was made SFCD's honorary member. Harry Warner, Jr. wrote in A Wealth of Fable, chapter 17 called "Parr Value" (again, sadly little available):

As the 50's were winding down, one tribute (in Sirius) to Parr said that he "made an essential contribution regarding the formation of German Fandom, and its foundation would have taken place years later without his active assistance and precious advice."

Similarly, the SFCD obituary says Parr was not one to keep grudges (so scolding Ernsting et al. even so obliquely must have shown depths of his disapproval}:

All those who had the pleasure of getting to know him describe Julian Parr as a distinguished gentleman whose British attitude worked to his benefit every time. In the diverse and often also dirty disputes within the SFCD, he always endeavoured to strike a balance and thus best served the cause which was close to his heart.

While not mentioned among "senior civil servants" in Beyond Fandom (and unnoticed by newszines at the time), Julian Frederick Parr was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in wikipedia:1986 New Year Honours "for services to British commercial interests in Cologne". In 1999 he received the Merit Cross of North Rhine-Westphalia, obviously having distinguished himself much in the Chamber, building British-German relation in business as well as schools.

Buhs wrote he knew next to nothing about Parr's family, nor do we still. There is a conspicuous lack of any mentions even in the obituaries.

SFCD says that "later" Parr was "for many years" a chairman of the "city group" Duisburg / Düsseldorf (founded 1958, active at least until 1963), he even attended conventions until 2002 (this in Köln). In a letter to Then, Malcolm Edwards said that Parr's fanzine collection ended up in the Science Fiction Foundation library.

Anton Ragatzy

Parr used the pseudonym Anton Ragatzy at various points. It would have to be an extreme coincidence if the name were not intended to refer to the character of the unorthodox osteopath (either he cures you or cripples you) in the 1931 and 1939 UK film (and 1923 play) The Outsider.

To VoM #27 (Sep 1943) Parr wrote, 'When Anton Ragatzy forwarded VOM to me …' Hellzapoppin (March 1941) also mentions receiving LoCs from, i. a., "…, Parr, Ragatzy, …" and what is printed from earlier ones (editor Douglas Webster commented "while Ragatzy’s criticism is reasonable, I must be spiteful & agree with JFParr") suggests he may have intended Ragatzy as an alter ego to stir the debate. Further research would be needed to see where this fell on the range from an open-secret in-joke to a serious attempt at a hoax: "He appreciated hoaxes, although he did not believe them", Buhs sums up Parr's Fortean writings.

Parr kept the pseudonym after the War for whatever reason (being an actifan under his own name in Germany, he hardly needed to hide his fanwriting), confirming it at the latest in 1961 Who's Who in Fandom. Later articles by "Ragatzy" appeared on the Continent at least in Alpha (October 1955) and “Science Fiction and Poetry” in Sol Reader (April 1962; editor Thomas Schlueck's translation from Science Fiction und Dichtkunst, Sol 26, 1961). So perhaps Parr wanted to publish, but not to admit to it after his official gafiation? There was one item by Ragatzy in Sol #20 (1960) and a letter in #24 (1961), while Parr had more but only up to #15 (1959). This starts

In hope to raise an interest in science-fiction poetry, Julian Parr once started a competition in the German fanzine ANDROMEDA for the best German translation of Robert A. Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth".

and the editor commented rather transparently

Anton Ragatzy will probably be known to you, for he has been active in international fandom for some time. Back in the mid-fifties he was busy building up Gerfandom, but now retired from the fannish scene.

• Julian F. Parr in Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Julian F. Parr as a Fortean, biographic article by Joshua Blu Buhs based on Parr's letters in EFR's archives
• see also the brief "Julian Parr 1923–2003" by Wolf von Witting, CounterClock #14 (May 2013), p. 6, some more discussion and a Wetzcon reminiscence follows in #16
• newszine Fandom Observer #184 contained Parr's obituary in German with many details
• Parr's entry in SFCD's list of Honorary Members (German)
• Julian Parr in German fanzine bibliography, no dates but covers
• http://www.chpr.at/artikel/p/parrjulk.htm – vice versa

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Person

1923—2003

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