Charles Duncombe
(???? –)
Charles 'Charlie' Duncombe was a UK fan from London active from around 1947 to around 1960. He was on the committees of the Festivention, the London SF Con and Loncon 1 and was a member of the British Fantasy Library (BFL) and the Science Fantasy Society (SFS), serving on the committee of the latter. Archie Mercer spoke of his 'talents as orator with built-in megaphone'[1]. Vin¢ Clarke described him as 'one of the unsung heroes of the London Cons. He is the Treasurer, the Man Who Collects the Cash at the Entrance, and the proud possessor of an accounts book London fans learnt to dread in the month before the Con.[2]. Terry Jeeves suggested that Duncombe 'only de-hibernated into fandom once a year to do [the treasurer job] ... Then he would vanish for another year'[3].
In Operation Fantast #2 (December 1947) he self-introduced:
About 1930 I succumbed, a starry-eyed victim, to the impact of American magazine Stf, which complemented a taste developed for the old masters, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and E. R. Burroughs. Then, a year later, I feel victim to the onslaught of the depression, but, despite my pecuniary stringency I managed to read practically all the fantasy mags that reached the book-stalls in this pulp-fiction started island, until 1939 when war-geared industry tardily recognised the value of my services. With the dawn of '47 I had plunged headlong into fandom. Subscriptions, Nigel's chains and library borrowings had taken the place of the argosies of old, pouring their treasures through my letter-box.
At Festivention he was part of the 'S-F Soap Opera Company' who performed the play 'Who Goes Where'. He was the treasurer of the London Circle in 1958–9 and he attended the London Eastercon of 1960 with his wife but not seemingly later conventions. In a letter to Archie Mercer in 1961, Ken Bulmer reported that 'Charlie has relinquished not only the money but his interest in fandom, I believe, a fact I regret'[4].
He was probably the basis for 'Bert Huggins' in Tales of the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke[5].
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- ↑ 'I Was the Treasurer for the London Con to End All Cons', Cactus #5 (May 1960).
- ↑ Science Fantasy News Convention Supplement (1952).
- ↑ Tynecon Programme Book (1974).
- ↑ Then, page 200.
- ↑ 'Tales of the White Horse' at fiawol.org.uk.
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