Edinburgh Forteans at 20
GORDON RUTTER, founder of the Edinburgh Fortean Society, looks back over two decades of fortean fellowship, eclectic events and enforced venue-hopping…
On the night of Friday, 9 April 1999 a small group of people sat around a table in The Claremont Bar in Edinburgh. That night, as we drank, I read from Bob Rickard’s introduction to Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned. Just bits of it; enough to give those who didn’t know anything about him an idea of who Fort was, what he did, how he saw the world, and why he might be important. We chatted afterwards, agreed it had been fun and agreed on a plan that we should meet every month and have a talk about a subject drawn from the vast world of forteana.
And that was the first meeting of the Edinburgh Fortean Society.
Obviously, it wasn’t due to some mind-boggling fortean coincidence that we had come together around that table; it had, of course, been planned, and everyone gathered there was a friend of mine. We already met in the Claremont on a weekly basis as part of the long running Edinburgh Doctor Who group. One night, at one of the Doctor Who chats, I asked if anyone would be interested in a group where we talked about forteana. I already knew Stewart Smith would say yes; we had met through the forteana email list and had attended several FT UnConventions together. Fortunately, enough other people said yes to make it seem like a viable proposition. I had a quick chat with the pub owners to see if we could book some space for our new group; yes, of course, no problem – but as it was a group
booking, what was the name of the group?
I hadn’t thought that far ahead to be honest! So, I reckoned that as we were meeting in Edinburgh and we were a bunch of forteans… we should be the Edinburgh Fortean Society. And so we booked our table. The choice of holding meetings on the second Friday of the month was deliberate – it meant that every so often we would have a meeting which would fall on Friday the 13th – which seemed kind of cool. I stuck up a few posters in the pub, and on the appointed date and time we met. The posters hadn’t, it seemed, attracted any new people, so it was those of us from the Doctor Who group again. No worries.
For our second meeting we had the whole top floor of the pub and had a slide show from myself and Scott Russell about Rosslyn Chapel and the mysteries associated with it
– and this was long before Dan Brown got involved! It was definitely a bit more ambitious than just sitting round a single table chatting.
Eventually, after only four meetings, our first Friday the 13th came around – specifically, Friday, 13 August 1999. Only one possible topic for that meeting – so we had a talk on luck and superstition. But we hadn’t thought this one through. This was Edinburgh in August, with the Festival and Fringe in full swing, and despite having a booking for the upstairs room we arrived to find it full of festivalgoers. Fortunately, we were still able to have our talk in a beer garden at a local pop-up venue, but we haven’t held a talk in August since.
Fridays soon proved to be a problem as well – extremely popular with people wanting to
hold parties and other events. Once, we were kicked out of our booked room and banished to an area under the stairs, with the speaker battling against the noise of drunken revellers. So, we tried different days, and have finally settled on the quiet night (for pubs) of Tuesday. We still keep it to the second Tuesday of the month, for reasons of tradition as much as anything. Another early tradition was that there would be no December talk but instead a Christmas meal, a chance to be sociable. Normal meetings were great, but didn’t offer much opportunity to sit down and chat with other people. So, the format is now 10 talks a year, one social event, and one break.
Once the group was up and running, members began to volunteer to do talks. We got mentioned in the local press, we were in fortean email lists and details of our talks were posted on the Fortean Times Message Board. And then one day it happened: someone I had never met before turned up to
Are we currently the UK’s oldest extant fortean group?
one of our meetings! A stranger, prompted to come along by an interest in all things fortean. That was when I knew the group had really taken off.
Since our humble beginnings we have put on over 200 talks – and we’ve also had 14 different venues. Most places welcome us with open arms initially and then after a couple of years at most they seem to lose interest, even though we’re bringing in money on a quiet night. We’ve gotten used to it, and we simply move on.
And we don’t just have talks – we’ve put on all-day events as well. The first one, in 2007, was the imaginatively titled Edinburgh Fortean Society Day Event. In addition, we’ve organised a number of outings, mostly to local places with some fortean connection.
And I’d like to think that we’ve inspired others over the years. There was, briefly, a group in Newcastle, and a slightly longerlived Dublin group. I shared a few pointers from my own experience with the organisers of both, was even able to pop along to the Dublin group. But there is one group still going strong – the London Fortean Society, which started 10 years ago. So, a happy 10th birthday to them – and well done for putting on such a wide and varied programme.
Initially, EdFort meetings were free, but the decision was eventually taken to start charging: one whole pound. For the attendees, it’s nothing; but it pays the speakers’ expenses and keeps them in drinks for the evening. Any surplus money is stored, and once a year we splash out on visitors from a bit further afield, such as Richard Freeman, Steve Parsons and Ian Simmons. We’ve even had FT founder Bob Rickard, and a certain David Sutton has promised to show up at some point in the future – if his busy schedule allows.
Over the years, we have repeated some topics and some talks have actually taken two meetings to present the whole argument (on one memorable occasion each of a two-part talk took three hours rather than our
normal one hour talk, break and Q and A for up to 45 minutes scenario).
We’ve had a range of subjects but there are still plenty we have not touched on. The website gives a list of all of the talks we have held. Some have been mainstream, aimed at a general audience (for example, a talk on what cryptozoology is), while others have been pretty niche (for example, we had one talk entitled ‘God’s Snowflake’, which was a sort of personal Bible Code thing for the speaker, based on a book that had fallen off his shelves when he was walking past!) And, some have been a bit more interactive, including a demonstration of how the skin of the Hindenburg could have formed thermite (yes, we had a thermite fire in a pub).
Recently, though, we have been a bit self-indulgent as we celebrated our 20th anniversary – we have had a look back at literally everything we have done over 20 years and we’ve held a party. I was pleasantly surprised when I sat down to plan the programme and noticed the party itself would be on Tuesday 9 April – exactly 20 years to the day since our first meeting. A
nice coincidence, of which I am sure Fort would have approved. The final event planned for our anniversary celebrations is a one-day conference on Saturday 13 July: six speakers for £12.50 in the centre of Edinburgh, followed by drinking in haunted vaults – now, that can’t be bad!
Are we currently the UK’s oldest extant fortean group? There are older groups, but they don’t seem to be doing anything at the moment. If you know otherwise, please write in and stake your claim. And if you don’t have a fortean group in your area, why not start one? I’ve certainly enjoyed the past 20 years – and the group even led directly to my meeting the woman who is now my wife. Three people who were at the first meeting are still regular attendees, and there are many regulars who have joined and continue to help move the group forward. We have over 400 members on our Facebook account, nearly 100 on Twitter, and our biggest talks have attracted over 80 participants; so, a big thank you to all of our followers, attendees and speakers.
What’s next for the Edinburgh Fortean Society? Well, more talks, of course – and no doubt more venues! Day events and outings have proved popular, so more of those as well. I’ve toyed with a podcast and a publication of some type, but they’ve not happened yet. We’ve got a joint event (a trip to Loch Ness) coming up with the Belgian Cryptozoology Club, so we’re going a bit international; and there’s interest in a tour of Rennes le Château and the associated area. So, things look healthy. We’ve got our website, and a presence on Facebook and Twitter.
If you’re ever in Edinburgh on the second Tuesday of the month... well, you’ll find a warm, fortean welcome waiting for you – wherever we happen to be meeting!
Website: http://edinburghforteansociety. org.uk/
Facebook: Edinburgh Fortean Society Twitter: @edinfortsoc
Conference: www.gordonrutter.com/ edfort-at-20/
2 GORDON RUTTER is the founder of EdFort. A schoolteacher by day, he is a longtime fortean and regular contributor to FT.