Vale David McDonnell - another fan gone!

For those readers who remember this fan, I'd just like to pass on the information that David died July 21 2009.

I first met David when he was Jan, a lady who hated to be considered female,even then, before she became he, but please forgive me - that's how I always thought of her. So I'm going to remember Jan, although I respect Jan's right to be David.

I first met Jan, as she then was, at my very first Austrek meeting. She didn't know me from a bar of soap, but immediately lent me some fanzines. I remember I somehow got a stain on one of them, so I sent away to the US for a replacement. Jan didn't mind, but I kept the stained one and gave her the replacement ... which she promptly lent to someone else and never got back! :-)

Because Austrek was my first experience of fandom, you might say that she was one of my first friends in fandom. I remember becoming a part of the group, long evenings playing Dungeons and Dragons, literary conventions as well as Trek ones.

I remember the Trek convention in Sydney back in the late 1970s - 1979, I think - where we all travelled there by train, overnight, and crammed into a hotel room in our sleeping bags ... yes, illegal, but that's how fans did it in those days. No wonder hotels didn't like SF cons.

It may have been Jan who managed to arrange for the con GoH, George Takei, to come to our room party. Jan had written some risque filk songs - my favourite to Advance Australia Fair, which began "Trekkers of the world rejoice, Spock's in pon farr again, The only question that remains is who and where and when..." . Another one went to the tune of "Donald Where's Your Troosers?" ("Scotty where's your troosers?"). But the cheekiest one went to the tune of "The Quartermaster's store". I wish I'd had a camera to record Jan's red face when we got to the Sulu verse of the song and she refused to sing it for George!


I only saw David occasionally after Jan became David - mostly at conventions - but remember this fan with great affection.