Despite not knowing him that well at all, the death of David Nightengale last winter - which I have only just found out about - has really upset me. David devoted his entire life to celebrating Gerry Anderson's achievements. Its tragic that he died so young. Just 66 or 7 I think.
Decades before I'd even remembered watching Thunderbirds and playing with my Project SWORD toys, David was publishing SIG, the original Supermarionation fanzine, with Brendan Sheehan.. What a labour of love that must have been, to actually put together a magazine and publish it regularly in the late 1970's and right through the 80's and beyond. David didn't just do this once, he went on publish the magazines Timescreen, Century 21 and Action 21, all fabulous in their own right. I have quite a few copies of the latter two at Moonbase and have always enjoyed re-reading them.
David also co-founded Fanderson in 1981, all of 41 years ago! How amazing is that. In 1981 I was 20 years old, strumming my guitar and jobbing round Europe! It would be another 10 years before I even remembered I'd owned a Dinky SPV as a kid, when I found a carcass of one in a junkshop.
So it was bitter-sweet for me to find the actual minutes of the very first meeting of what was to become Fanderson [in the Fanderon online archive] in that far off year of 1981 and how David's magazine SIG became the club fanzine. Its a fascinating read to see the kernel of the idea form, captured in these typed minutes with familiar names contributing to the discussion of how best to celebrate Gerry's work. Gerry himself is there too, eventually being made President at the close of the proceedings.
Another fascinating facet of the minutes is the attendance of Chris Leach representing Anderpup, another supermarionation club and fanzine, of which I have a few copies. These were very simple and stapled A4 booklets and represented one of two other clubs around at the time, the other being the Century 21 Appreciation Society or something similar.
Have a read of the minutes. Its fascinating to see these 'rival' clubs come together for a common cause and form the original membership of Fanderson, with David's SIG, rather than Anderpup, becoming its pioneering club fanzine.
Let me know what you think.
https://fanderson.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/810820.pdf
