Science Fiction, Southsea and Robert Fludd Bookshop by Nigel Brown

 Sometimes all that matters is to be in the right place at the right time.

I’ve previously described the hunter/gatherer lifestyle of the early 1970s Southsea-dwelling comic book fan. [ http://superstuff73.blogspot.com/2011/07/mad-dc-comic-hunt-or-tales-of-fabulous.html ]

Alongside those activities, for me, was the equally absorbing interest in science fiction.

The earliest books I remember relishing are the Enid Blyton Famous Fives, Secret Sevens and especially the 'Mystery' books, for example: The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage. These taught me that favourite books can come in series, and I learned to look out for them, collect them; there was a continuity in some of them as well, a sense of progression from book to book, so I discovered that characters could change over a series of books – a revelation: the characters seemed much more real.

Then onto the C.S.Lewis Narnia books and the E.Nesbit books (especially the time-travelling The Story of the Amulet). I had sets of them, and re-read them constantly. I was lucky: I must have read The Lord of the Rings at around the perfect age of 12.

But it was the ‘Moon adventure’ trilogy of the Dr Dolittle books (Doctor Dolittle’s Garden, Doctor Dolittle in the Moon, Doctor Dolittle’s Return) that really pointed me in the direction of science fiction. Although strictly fantasy stories, they had a semblance of science about them, and captured in full the sense of wonder that science fiction has to offer.

 

 

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, without the on-tap information that is taken for granted today, was a time when one would come across key pieces of historical detail almost by accident. I knew that Charles Dickens had been born in Portsmouth (there was a museum dedicated to him, although he left Portsmouth in 1815 aged just 3 years old), but it was at random times throughout those years that I would stumble across other nuggets of information until I built up a more comprehensive sense of Southsea’s literary history.

One of my favourite science fiction authors, H.G.Wells (some would say the founder of the genre)  worked in Southsea for three years as an apprentice draper aged 14 to 16 (an experience from which he later wrote several non-genre novels, including The History of Mr Polly and Kipps). At the same time, a certain doctor decided to move to Southsea and start his medical practice there. He filled the empty hours between seeing patients by writing short stories; and it was there that Dr Arthur Conan Doyle wrote A Study in Scarlet, the first of his Sherlock Holmes stories. He went on to write a number of science fiction novels and stories, including The Lost World. And Rudyard Kipling – author of many science fiction and fantasy stories – once lived in Southsea, too. As a child of nationals living in India, he boarded in Southsea, as a boy, for six years. (He left Southsea just three years before H.G.Wells arrived in the town.)

One couldn’t claim that the science fiction genre was prominent in Portsmouth, but, given the above, it would be hard to deny that there wasn’t a faint literary scent of it in the Southsea air.

The 1960s allowed free access to science fiction classics in the form of – in my case – a small library in Elm Grove, Southsea, located just opposite Albany Road (by happenstance along the same road that Dr Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical practice had been situated). This treasure trove of books had a comprehensive science fiction collection in the children’s section – all hardback books – including a run of the Heinlein ‘juveniles’ published in the UK by Gollancz, such as Time for the Stars and Between Planets. These books, together with the collections of Arthur C. Clarke short stories, alongside the Isaac Asimov books on the library shelves, completed the triumvirate, the Big Three of science fiction, as they were known in those days: a heady inoculation of science fiction given at an impressionable age.

 

 

Besides the libraries, W. H. Smith & Son (now known simply as WH Smith) had a branch in the main shopping road in Southsea, Palmerston Road, that also stocked a respectable number of science fiction books. Not the American imports that one would have to undertake a journey to London to obtain (at the specialist shop Dark They Were And Golden Eyed at 10 Berwick Street, Soho) but certainly enough to be going on with. In those days there were ample pickings amongst the paperbacks, with titles by Robert Silverberg, AE van Vogt, Edmund Cooper and many others, often with the distinctive artwork of Chris Foss that seemed to define the era. 

WH Smith in Palmerston Road was where I bought what is probably the most influential science fiction book I’ve ever read: The Early Asimov: Volume One (Panther Science Fiction). Isaac Asimov’s autobiographical descriptions about writing his earliest stories, and the thrill of sending them off to science fiction magazines in the hope of publication, made me aware of possibilities that I hadn’t yet thought of myself.

 

Also of importance, so far as delving deeper into the realm of science fiction was concerned, WH Smith stocked the American science fiction magazines of the day. This was a crucial presentation of the genre as a more immediate and ongoing entertainment, with new magazines arriving like clockwork every month.

I recall the first issue I saw of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was the October 1972 issue, with a striking cover by Birmingham artist David Hardy, featuring stories by Philip José Farmer, Zenna Henderson and Harry Harrison (who was later to become a good friend).

 

And I remember the excitement of discovering the second issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in the Palmerston Road WH Smith in the summer of 1977. With the first letter in its letter column being a congratulatory note from Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov’s response to it, one felt a member of a fun, exclusive and elite club. At the time, Asimov was actively encouraging readers to send in stories for possible publication. I was a regular buyer of that magazine from then on.

 

(Despite much searching I was never able to obtain the first issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine until a visit to A Change of Hobbit bookstore in Santa Monica California in the spring of 1981. There, I was informed by the owner Sherry Gottlieb – who had her pet boa constrictor ‘Wrinklesnakeskin’ draped around her neck – that they had none in stock but she would take my name and address and put me on her list, although there were eight names ahead of mine. Several years later I received a card by air-mail that they had an issue in, if I still wanted it (which I did). That’s what I call service!)

 

 

Of the numerous Portsmouth second-hand shops detailed previously in The Mad DC Comic Hunt, I don’t recall seeing many science fiction books for sale, apart from a basket full of Perry Rhodan paperbacks in the Strand Gift Shop, but that didn’t matter given the abundance elsewhere.

I only knew of one independent bookshop in Southsea, E.L. Foster, positioned beyond the end of the Palmerston Road, situated just past St. Jude’s Church at 4 Grove Road South. It was an academic bookshop with a bowed front that had small window panes and dark narrow timber glazing bars, giving it the appearance of a shop unchanged from the 18^th century. The owner was a distinguished gentleman with the air of a genteel tailor: short, balding and dressed in a smart suit, who used a walking stick. Given that this was the late 1960s/early 1970s, it was perfectly possible that his stiff leg (an artificial limb?) had been acquired in World War Two (or, as we spoke of it in those days: ‘The War’). His bookshop served what was then known as Portsmouth ‘Poly’ (Portsmouth Polytechnic, later to become The University of Portsmouth in 1992). As a non-fiction bookshop I’m sure it was excellent, but if it sold science fiction books I was never aware of them, and consequently I only visited it when I needed particular textbooks to do with schoolwork.

Then a second independent bookshop named 'Robert Fludd' opened at 65 Palmerston Road Southsea, at the other end of the shopping centre, and access to science fiction books moved into high gear.

The significance of the name Robert Fludd completely passed us by in those days. Robert Fludd (1574-1637) was a mystic cosmologist and English physician (amongst other things); it was a suitable name for a shop dealing in a wide range of esoteric books, including science fiction.

Robert Fludd bookshop was open by 1974. Its location, in its day, was a good one. The bustling shopping centre of Southsea in Palmerston Road boasted two department stores: Handleys, that later became Debenhams, along with Knight & Lee, part of the John Lewis group. They faced each other on the crossroads with Osbourne Road and Clarendon Road. Robert Fludd bookshop was close to one of the opposite corners, in the part of Palmerston Road that led down to the seafront.

I remember getting the bus home on Saturdays when school finished at noon, sitting on it for one extra stop past my own stop to arrive outside Debenhams (still known as ‘Handleys Corner’ in those days), then going to WH Smith to spend my 60p pocket money given to me that morning by my father (I would often buy stationary with it!). Fludd’s soon became the preferred port of call, the visit a reward to look forward to at the end of the school week.

The shop had two large plate glass windows with a central door, bordered by two tall marble strips. As I write this in 2021, the bookshop has been gone for over thirty years, its place at present taken by Southsea Spice World Ltd, but you can still see that grey speckled marbling, a last remnant of the frontage that survives today.

Curiously, there must be many other remnants of Robert Fludd bookshop left, possibly scattered all around the world. Although computers existed in the early 1970s, an independent bookshop had no access to them for stock-keeping (the first personal computer, the Altair, became available in 1974 – around the time that Robert Fludd first opened. This computer was used mainly by computer hobbyists). So Robert Fludd had a simple system of stock control. They stuck a label inside the front flap of every book in stock, with a pencilled note of the book’s title. On purchase, they would simply tear off this part of the label across its perforation, leaving a small sticker advertising the shop, with its telephone number for possible future sales. A simple, quick and effective system that has kept their name alive throughout the years!

 

Robert Fludd bookshop was spread across a ground floor and a rear mezzanine. On entering, you faced a book-lined ground floor, with two islands of books in the centre and the till to your immediate right. It was manned by two gentlemen: a taller man with half-moon spectacles, a moustache, grey hair and balding, rather like a benevolent Basil Fawlty, and a shorter man, stockier with a Robert Robinson comb-over and a face similar to Julian Bream, the classical guitarist. That last image was appropriate, because one of the joys of this bookshop was the classical music that often played throughout the day. Now, musical accompaniment in shops is common; back in the mid-1970s it was a novelty. The sweet tones of Handel and the soothing arpeggios of Hadyn seemed to lift the atmosphere of the shop to a higher intellectual level, and enhanced the pleasure of an afternoon browse.

As well as books, Robert Fludd bookshop also sold 8-track music cassettes (now as redundant as the Edison Phonograph cylinder), and fountain pens (still used today, but some would see them as outdated as quill pens).

As an independent bookshop, even in the 1970s, the difference in quality of books offered for sale, compared to a chain like WH Smith, was a revelation. The breadth and scope of books was an enticement to venture into new worlds, and I took full advantage of the opportunity.

There were academic books to cater for the poly students, coffee table books, and books of a more general fiction on offer.

There was also a good selection of more literary books. Later on, when my interest in science fiction waned for a time, Robert Fludd bookshop helped me to discover that 'literature' could be equally entrancing (something I'd avoided up until then after English lessons at school had stunted my interest). I discovered a number of books that really sparked me off.

(They were: The Floating Opera by John Barth. A book that really was important to me, because it showed it was possible to have a whole novel where the structure in itself – a commentary on one single important day in the life of the main character – made for an integral part of the story. I also admired the skill with which it was written, together with the gripping plot which hinged on nothing more than an internal decision of this main character. I found The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas was also fascinating due to its structure, but in a different way. To go from lyrical poetry, to a mad, sprawling prose, to a, seemingly, 'normal' story... and then onto its unexpected end, showed me that supposedly 'mundane' literature (ie. not science fiction, fantasy or pulp) could be just as wondrous as science fiction. And The Magus (the 2nd edition - revised!) by John Fowles totally twisted my mind around. I couldn't believe what was happening in the book. Not only did it keep my eyes glued to the page, but it hinted at mysteries and possibilities within the form of the novel (or any fiction) that I hadn't considered before. None of the science fiction writers I'd ever read up to that point had come close. They talked of a 'sense of wonder' *out there*. The Magus hinted at the same thing, but *down here*.)

 

 

If Robert Fludd bookshop was still open today, I have no doubt that the graphic novel, yet-to-be in the 1970s, would have been fully catered for. It was on one of the central display islands, however, that I first saw the books Superman: From the ‘30s to the ‘70s, together with its companion Batman title, both in UK editions. These collections reprinted a number of key stories concerning the characters, but it was of more interest to see the reproductions of many early comic book covers previously unseen. DC comics were not distributed in the UK until late in 1959, and only a relatively small number were available to buy from specialist dealers in the 1970s.

But I’ve saved the best for last: the genre books. This is where Robert Fludd bookshop really excelled.

Consider that although Palmerston Road was the major shopping centre of Southsea, it was still only one of several, and not even Portsmouth’s main shopping area (that was centred around Commercial Road). Yet in this relative backwater one could obtain Ballantine and Bantam books that, otherwise, would have only been available by post or by that train journey to London.

I’ve mentioned that the shop had two floors. Past the central islands of books you would go up a short staircase. To your immediate left, there would be shelves ceiling to floor crammed with the latest science fiction and fantasy books including, most importantly – to me, at any rate – a large number of the Ballantine 'Best of' books: The Best of James Blish, Hal Clement, Stanley Weinbaum, Fredric Brown, Cordwainer Smith... the list goes on.

Notable features of these books were their eye-catching covers and their introductions, usually by fellow science fiction authors, that added a lot of background and context to the stories.

 

For example, James Blish was a name I knew from his juvenile novel Welcome to Mars, which I’d taken out multiple times from Elm Grove library. I later knew his name from his masterfully written Star Trek books, where he took scripts from the original 1960s series and turned them into elegant, vivid short stories. But his The Best of James Blish was another thing entirely. Here, a selection of his work was presented unencumbered by the current fashions in publication. Stories like Surface Tension (1952) and Common Time (1953) were pure sense-of-wonder and displayed the full revelatory potential of the genre. These stories would rarely be reprinted in the science fiction magazines of the day, which published new fiction, and so it was a joy to have them readily available.

 

And the same can be said for the work of the other writers featured in the rest of this series. The editor was Judy-Lynn del Rey, wife of the veteran science fiction author Lester del Rey, who did an exemplary job of selection and presentation.

These books made plain that the genre of science fiction was a particular thing in of itself, a self-referencing body of work with its own distinct literary past.

But science fiction has also always been at its best when it’s looked outwards, not inwards; when it delivers the addictive drug known as ‘sense of wonder’ (Arthur C. Clarke called science fiction “the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug”).

Reading science fiction can enhance one’s sense of the span of years: of centuries stretching into the far future (I’m thinking especially of Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men) and reaching deep into the past (Robert Silverberg’sHawksbill Station is a good example of this).

This sense of time resonated well with me, because anyone brought up in Portsmouth could not help but have a sense of history in their bones. It was impossible to ignore the 16^th century castle of King Henry VIII (Southsea Castle), the still powerful presence of Nelson and his navy (the Royal Dockyard and Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, in dry dock but still in commission), Portchester Castle’s origin as a Roman fort, and, overlooking the city, the line of red-brick faced Palmerston forts along the top of Portsdown hill (a second defence of England’s hinterland against Napoleonic invasion had the navy failed). 

To say nothing of the defences still visible along the seafront in case of Nazi invasion in ‘The War’. Those of us brought up in Portsmouth throughout the 1960s and even 1970s would walk down streets that had houses missing like teeth with gaps. They were a constant reminder of the bombing inferno that Portsmouth had endured, in those days, just a few decades before. I myself grew up in a house built on a former bomb site, and throughout my childhood there were still the shattered remains of three large Victorian houses next to our house that were only cleared and built upon in the 1970s.

It would be an absurd exaggeration to include the name Robert Fludd bookshop of Palmerston Road in this list of historical icons, but as an influence in our personal lives, growing up in Southsea in the 1970s, it surely does deserve its rightful place in the record of those times.

 

 

copyright. Nigel Brown

 

Many thanks to Ian Baker for help with research for this article.