PADS

PADS, an abbreviation for Printing and Distribution Service and sometimes styled PaDS, was a British APA-like-entity sponsored by the BSFA. It was meant for British fans who wanted to publish fanzines but did not have a mimeo. Fanzine editors sent their material to a central mailer, who produced the fanzines and bundled them into a mailing. PADS helped fans with little money publish, but on the other hand, each PADS-published fanzine looked a lot like the others. PADS was criticized by Ratfandom as being a means for production of crudzines although there were a few genuinely good fanzines that resulted from PADS, such as Mike Ashley's Xeron. Many PADSzines were widely distributed outside the PADS system.

Charles Platt announced the service in Beyond 5 (April 1964) and it was confirmed to BSFA members in Vector 26 the following month. Doreen Parker would type the stencils and Platt would duplicate them. The first mailing appeared in October although it was at this point only unofficially a BSFA service. In the BSFA Bulletin 1 of December 1965, Archie Mercer announced that he and Beryl Henley would be taking over PADS which would henceforth be formally under the auspices of the BSFA. Their first mailing was the fourth. This arrangement continued until January 1967 when the BSFA Bulletin 10 carried an announcement that a new administrator was being sought. This was followed by increasingly desperate requests in issue 14 and 15. The tenth mailing was issued in late 1967 with only a single fanzine, Adrian Cook's Warlock and that was the effective end of PADS. BSFA Bulletin 19 (September 1968) announced the suspension of the service, adding that Dave Sutton had taken on the administration but only one person had expressed an interest in participating.

Contributors:

• Mike Ashley – Xeron
• John Barfoot – Bumblie
• Harry Bell – Grimwab
• Adrian Cook – Warlock
• Jim Grant – Fusion
• Beryl Henley – Link
• Graham Hall – Doubt
• Dicky Howett & Christopher Priest – Padlock
• Chas Legg – Entropy, Freewheelin'
• Tom Jones & Brian Stableford – Proteus
• Steve Moore – Vega
• Charles Platt – Garbistan, Insomnia
• Christopher Priest – Yawl-B, Thud-F
• Mary Reed – Link, Crabapple
• Peter Weston – Nexus
• Charlie Winstone – Effell, Whim
• Dave Wood – Bad News

• Greg Pickersgill's pages on PADS including contents list for all mailings.

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Publication

1964—1967

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