Mancon 1

Mancon 1 was a one-day convention held October 5, 1952 in Manchester, UK. It was probably chaired by Dave Cohen with Eric Bentcliffe, Frank Simpson, Sid Klepper, Bill Jesson and Sandy Sanderson. It started around noon and ended in the evening. Speakers included John Russell Fearn, John Brunner, Frank Simpson, Mike Rosenblum. The program also included games, a radio play, and a film.

Attendees

There is seemingly no published membership list. John Roles estimated attendance as 'about eighty'. The following are either mentioned in contemporary reports or appear in photos. Attendees were mostly from Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford and other northern towns and cities. There were no Londoners.

This is a work in progress. Names are being checked to see if they're here under variants.

• Pete Ackroyd
• Mal Ashworth
• Eric Bentcliffe
• Marjorie Broadbent
• John Brunner
• Freda Busfield
• Peter Campbell
• Geoffrey Clay
• Mrs Clay *
• Dave Cohen
• Lewis Conway
• George Ellis
• Frances Evans
• Fred Fairless
• John Russell Fearn
• Douglas Firth
• Terry Jeeves
• Bill Jesson
• Leslie J. Johnson
• Dick Jones
• Eric Jones
• Sid Klepper
• Geoff Lewis
• Frank Milnes
• Jim Mooney
• Stan Nuttall
• D. Peter Ogden
• Tom Owens
• Derek Pickles
• Marjorie Pickles
• Mavis Pickles
• Ken Potter
• Frank Richards
• John Roles
• J. Michael Rosenblum
• Sandy Sanderson
• Ina Shorrock
• Norman Shorrock
• Frank Simpson
• Paul Sowerby
• Donald Towers
• Mr Towers *
• Harry Turner
• Brian Varley
• Norman Weedall
• Betty White
• John White
• Tom White
• Taffy Williams
• Dave Wood

Names marked * are believed to be family members of other attendees and not necessarily fans themselves per se.

Rob Hansen's Then Volume 2 Chapter 2 reports:

MANCON was held on 5th October 1952 in the concert hall of the Waterloo Hotel, the venue for the Manchester group's regular meetings. The con attracted around 100 fans and brought about the fannish resurrection of Harry Turner. Guest of Honour was John Russell Fearn who screened a film he had produced and starred in, with Peter Ogden, titled 'Black Saturday' and based on his story 'Black-Out'. (Ogden later published ERBANIA, and moved to Florida.) Other items included '1966 And All That', a play by Frank Simpson; 'Fear', a play by the Lancaster Group (Wood and Potter); a talk on fandom by Mike Rosenblum; a quiz between teams from the Liverpool and Manchester groups; and a display of 'Future Fashions' by Frances Evans. It was apparently a reasonably successful con but the fact that no London fans bothered to show up was taken as a deliberate snub by Northern fans, salt rubbed into the wound the North/South split was fast becoming. Protestations from the London Circle that no snub had been intended and that Manchester was too far away were treated with derision by Northerners, who regularly travelled down to London for the national convention.

• Conrep by Paul Sowerby in Post War (Winter 1952).

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first	Mancon	Supermancon
	1952

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