Harry Turner had a father with an unusual career – Barton Turner was an escapologist and illusionist, and a contemporary of Harry Houdini. As The Great Deville, he toured the music halls between more conventional jobs. Both were named Henry on their birth certificates but neither ever used that name. And the family name could well have been Edwards, the name which appears on Barton's birth certificate. But his mother remarried as a widow with three young sons and the family became known as Turners.

Harry was an outstanding pupil at school and he had a talent for writing as well as painting. He developed a lifelong interest in space travel and science fiction, interests shared by his future wife, Marion, during the era of American magazines like Astounding and Wonder Stories.

Harry was a particular admirer of the work of the artists Frank R. Paul in Wonder Stories and Elliott Dold in Astounding Stories, and also a fan of science fiction authors like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. His favourite film was Things To Come, Alexander Korda's 1936 version of the Wells story, which he was able to view on DVD one last time shortly before his final Christmas.

As a teenager, Harry was a member of the Manchester Interplanetary Society and the co-editor then sole editor of its journal, The Astronaut. The MIS has the honour to be the only amateur society ever to launch rockets from English soil; until its exploits attracted the unwelcome attention of the local police and provide the Manchester Evening News, the News of the World, the Sunday Chronicle and other newspapers with a shock-horror story.

With wife-to-be Marion's help (they met at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in 1938), Harry began to publish Zenith, his own fan magazine, in the early 1940s. When he registered for military service in at the end of 1940, he was surprised to find that he had A1 vision, even though he always wore glasses. His actual call-up was postponed several times because Hitler's Luftwaffe kept bombing the RAF's records, but it did happen in 1942; in nice time to sabotage and hasten Harry and Marion's wedding plans.

After basic training at RAF Padgate and a radio course at Birmingham College of Technology, Harry was posted in February of 1943 to the radio school at RAF Yatesbury, where he found at least one familiar face – Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction author and creator of the communication satellite concept. Harry had met Arthur Clarke previously as a science fiction fan, they had visited each other at their respective homes in Longsight in Manchester and London, and Harry's engagement to Marion was reported in Arthur Clarke's fannish newsletter.

The RAF eventually sent Harry to India as a radar technician as an alternative to ‘enjoying' the doubtful delights of early parenthood. The whole thing seems to have started off as a great adventure, which turned sour when the gang reached India and found that even though the war with Japan was over, they were still required to assemble and operate top secret and temperamental radar equipment. [Pictures available on request, except to foreign spies and members of MI 5.]

In India, Harry discovered the paintings and poetry of Amrita Sher-Gil, who was the inspiration for a character in one of Salman Rushdie's novels. Harry's collection of photographs and his paintings both include records of his time in India. The machinations of the post-war Labour government kept Harry and his colleagues stuck Out East (where the RAF famously went on strike over the slow pace of repatriation) until well into 1946. But they got home eventually.

Back in civilian life, Harry returned to his pre-war employer, the Anchor Chemical Company in Manchester, where he had worked as a rubber chemist. A talented artist, Harry used his skills as a designer and graphic artist to create and organized an advertising department. He continued to play an active part in the world of science fiction fandom. Two more sons, William then Robert, arrived to join Philip before the first half of the 20th century ran out.

A new job as Advertising Manager at Redfern's Rubber Works in Hyde (1949-58) prompted an eventual move to Romiley. The family arrived there in 1954, and Harry spent the next 54 years in Romiley, where he co-founded the Romiley Fan Veterans & Scottish Dancing Society [Scottish dancing was Mrs. Turner's hobby and not something which Mr. Turner would ever have done!] Romiley was also handy for walking expeditions in the Peak District. Or ‘trudging', as his less willing offspring termed it. Harry was also active in Romiley's cultural life; he was a member of the Beeches Art Group and a popular performer at Romiley Music Group.

1954 was a big year in the world of fandom in the North West of England; the year of the Supermancon (for which Harry produced the souvenir programme), which was billed as "The biggest fan convention of the year". It was also the year when Harry began to publish a new fanzine, Now & Then, with the help of his school friend Eric Needham, a fellow member of the Manchester Interplanetary Society and another refugee from the RAF. Eric Needham, the creator of the much imitated Widower's Wonderful range of products, is well remembered in SF fandom circles as the author of fascinating flights of fancy.

Harry's final career move was to the Manchester Guardian and Evening News. His inquiry about the cost of a classified advertisement when he was seeking a change of job caught the attention of the Advertisement Manager, who passed Harry's details on to the Advertisement Director. Harry was recruited once problems of office accommodation had been sorted out and they had somewhere to put him! Harry became manager of the Advertising and Promotion Department at the Evening News and when he moved again, it was in August 1970 with his department from the old building on Corporation Street to new offices on Deansgate.

Harry was a serial buyer of jazz and classical records; his particular favourites were Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck on the jazz side, and Sibelius, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and a variety of less well know composers (such as J. N. Hummel) on the classical side. He founded the Thelonius Monk Appreciation Society and he decided that his collection of jazz recordings, books, etc. deserved the title: Romiley Jazz Archive. As an active member of Manchester Jazz Society, he gave regular talks to share his expertise and his music collection.

Even with both halves of a pair of semi-detached houses available, there was never enough room for sufficient bookcases to house his swelling book collection, which featured many examples of the dreaded GUP (Great Unread Pile of books). Harry read extremely widely, taking in subjects as diverse as mathematics, the history of art, modern & contemporary art, ancient civilizations (particularly the Maya), Eastern European literature, contemporary fiction, music (classical & jazz), science and its philosophy, astronomy and space exploration. His broad range of interests contributed to a reputation for knowing something about just about everything.

Harry's expeditions into the field of abstract art led to experiments with elements of business charts from his working life, which he turned into paintings in the 1960s. He was also interested in the graphics of perceptual anomalies, influenced by the work of Josef Albers. His exploration of inherent visual deficiencies in the isometric system of drawing led to his development of the "Triad" and the creation of his own niche the world of impossible objects. Harry eventually achieved international recognition with his Triad designs, some of which found homes in science fiction fanzines courtesy of editors in search of something new and different.

He is the author of Triad Optical Illusions and how to design them, which was published by Dover Publications of New York in 1978.

The Triad is an "impossible figure" formed by grouping three identical shapes round an equilateral triangle. "Front" and "Rear" Views Such figures may be similarly linked to produce more complex anomalous figures: "Front" and "Rear" Views Further, since the equilateral triangle network, on which the isometric system of drawing is based, is a regular two-dimensional tesselation, Triad figures may be extended indefinitely on the plane to produce paradoxical patterns, reminiscent of geometrical Islamic art.

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An Open University Maths foundation course in the 1970s led Harry explore the artistic possibilities of geometric paradoxes, geometric dissections and the Fibonacci series. Harry also revived his interest in science fiction fanzines during this period, winning an award for one of his cover designs for Zimri; but clouding cataracts dimmed that interest. In his late fifties, the artist found himself unable to see well enough to paint and draw, to work on his publishing contracts, and to read or watch television. Paradoxically, photography was about all that he could manage with the right equipment.

Following somewhat less than perfect, vision-restoring operations, he added serious stamp collecting to his list of interests, concentrating on stamps of the Soviet period in Russia, pre-World War II Germany and the German states, and the German Democratic Republic. He applied his talent for researching a new interest thoroughly to the soaring postal rates of the inflation period, and turned a section of a stamp collection into a work of scholarship. He also went back to the Open University for courses on art – he had actually managed to work through one course in a state of severely diminished vision, having booked it before being told that his first cataract operation would be postponed for 5 months.

An expert typographer, Harry was drawn into the world of computers in his seventies in order to design booklets and magazines for friends. These were jobs which he had done manually in the era of Letraset for the likes of the British Journal of Russian Philately and the Wyndham Lewis Society. Harry grew to appreciate the convenience of being able to print proofs and make design changes on the spot and he became an essential ally of, and designer for, Steve Sneyd's Hilltop Press.

He also used his computer to create vast lists of his LP, CD, book and stamp collections, for recycling versions of his fanzines from the 1950s and 1960s, and for writing memoirs about his time in India with the RAF and his experiences in the world of science fiction fandom.

A stroke in his 85th year wiped out a great deal of his memories of his fannish years, which was a source of great regret to him, and his health declined in his final two years. But Harry took along an often irreverent sense of humour on his final trip to hospital. When told that a nurse wanted to take his blood pressure, he was still able to come back with: "Where do you want to take it?"

Harry and his wife, Marion, did a pretty damn good job of raising their family, they were very tolerant of the eccentricities of their three lads and they were always a source of inspiration and encouragement. In Harry's case, the final verdict on his life has to be job done, and job well done.

We are now in an age when memories of someone like Harry Turner will endure in small but interconnected pockets on the World Wide Web. So "gone but not forgotten" has never been more true for the likes of The Grand Old Man of British Science Fiction Fandom.

Harry Turner, graphic designer and painter, has exhibited at the following Group Exhibitions:

1948	Midday Studios, Manchester
1950 - 1960	Beeches Art Group, Romiley
1962, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1973	Local Artists, Stockport Art Gallery
1967 & 1971 - 1974	Manchester Academy of Fine Arts
1969, 1971	SLADE Exhibition, Salford
1970 - 1979	Stockport Art Guild
1976	Society of Modern Painters, Salford Art Gallery
1986	Impossible Figures, Museum Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht
1987	Unmöglichen Figuren/Impossible Figures, Ratingen, Düsseldorf

The man himself . . .
Harry Turner was a fan of Krazy Kat [George Herriman], Peanuts [Charles Schulz], Calvin & Hobbes [Bill Watterson] and Bogart [Peter Plant], TV snooker from the early days (he once met Steve Davis at Piccadilly station in Manchester), The Invaders, Star Trek: The Next Generation (he was especially amused by Capt. Picard forever pulling his jumper down), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, The Last of the Summer Wine, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, the Time Team [especially Prof. Mick's striped jumpers], Horizon (before it went off and deserted real science), the Discworld books of Terry Pratchett, Ancient Egypt, the Maya, the works of Charles Fort, the stories of Mikhail Zoshchenko and H.P. Lovecraft, the Good Soldier Svejk, playing chess, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Jean Sibelius, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Martin Gardner, optical illusions, mathematics, space flight, Richard Feynman, Scientific American magazine, (solid) rice pudding, white wine, gardening, DIY, fish & chips, Campari, . . .
Harry Turner was a man of many ideas and enthusiasms, which he enjoyed sharing with others. He could turn his hand to most practical matters, including home printing with a duplicator and all types of construction work, including building custom items of furniture.

Sole © RFV&SDS, 2009.