Terry Jeeves with Frances Glynn in 1954.
- Terry Jeeves (photo by Andrew Porter)
Prolific fan artist Terry Jeeves has passed away. Sheryl Birkhead received the news in an e-mail from Terry’s daughter.
A member of First Fandom and winner of its Hall of Fame Award in 2010, Terry was active as an artist, organizer, faned and fan writer.
His art was popular and respected. He contributed countless humorous line drawings to fanzines and won the Rotsler Award in 2007. “The virtues of Terry’s work,” Taral Wayne once wrote, “is its invariable good humour, and the by and large pleasing nature of its construction.”
In the days when most fanzines were mimeographed, Jeeves was regarded as having few peers for his work on stencil. His “Soggies,” characters he originally created to be both distinctive in appearance and easy to draw, even appeared in a number of professional hobbyist magazines.
He helped found the British Science Fiction Association in 1958, later serving as chair and as editor of its zine, Vector. He was one of the first fans recognized with the Doc Weir Award for service to British Fandom.
Jeeves published a fanzine of his own, Erg, for over 40 years. He also co-edited Triode with Eric Bentcliffe. He produced a bibliographical Checklist to Astounding SF and was credited for assisting with Michael Ashley’s complete index of the prozine (1981).
His articles appeared in many fanzines. Among his last projects was a memoir of his service with the R.A.F. during World War II, which was serialized in The Knarley Knews.
He even wrote a story that won the N3F short story competition.
By profession Jeeves was a schoolmaster. Married twice, Jeeves lost his second wife, Val, to cancer in August 2008.
[Thanks to Sheryl Birkhead and Robert Lichtman for the story.]
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I remember him as always funny…
I never had the pleasure of meeting him in meatspace but knew that he was one of the good guys. Have enjoyed his writings and his artwork for the 50 years that I’ve been around, and I’m sorry to hear of his passing.
In June 2010 Kentucky fan Tom Sadler (editor of The Reluctant Famulus) produced a 120-page collection, WARTIME DAZE (OR HOW I WON THE WAR) AND OTHER BITS, of Terry’s WW2 memories that were originally published in ERG and reprinted by Sadler in TRF. He made 100 copies and may have some left. It includes introductory material by his two daughters and his son. Sadler’s e-mail is tomfamulus (at) hughes (dot) net, for those interested in obtaining a copy.
Of the fannish greats who now revel at the Awards Banquet table at that Great Slanshak in the Sky. Terry is one of the greatest. I knew him and enjoyed his friendship for many years. He’s one that’ll be missed.
Terry’s two articles for Mimosa, both very entertaining, are here and here.
Man, I wish there was a way to preview and correct comment postings here. First link apparently has a problem of some kind, so let’s try this again.
The two links to Terry’s articles in Mimosa are:
http://www.jophan.org/mimosa/m12/jeeves.htm
http://www.jophan.org/mimosa/m14/jeeves.htm
@Rich: No link problem for me, Rich, and the two articles are “very entertaining” indeed. Worth rereading, as I just did, to get a quick look back at the fine quality of his wordwhipping.
I met Terry on one of my first visits to the UK, after exchanging fanzines and art for quite some time. He and his wife introduced me to well dressings, Scarborough (which had only been a word in a song until then) and the English seaside. Terry was a wonderful artist, faned, and a great host. So sad. 🙁