A well liked Fortean.
I just don’t know much about him. Indeed, I know so little that I am tempted to not write him up at all. But he was well thought-of by Thayer and Eric Frank Russell, among others, and a frequent contributor, so it’s hard to skip him entirely. Also, he wrote several long letters to Russell that our preserved in his papers at the University of Liverpool, which give some insight into his Forteanism, if not much else.
The only hard biographical facts about Alexander Grant that I can give is that he was Scottish, and iced in Glasgow. More speculatively, he seems to have been economically hard off in the early 1950s, but presented a good face—if sometimes overly solicitous. He was skeptical of those in power. He seems to have been lonely, and may have been relatively old at the time he joined the Society. He did have nice penmanship.
I just don’t know much about him. Indeed, I know so little that I am tempted to not write him up at all. But he was well thought-of by Thayer and Eric Frank Russell, among others, and a frequent contributor, so it’s hard to skip him entirely. Also, he wrote several long letters to Russell that our preserved in his papers at the University of Liverpool, which give some insight into his Forteanism, if not much else.
The only hard biographical facts about Alexander Grant that I can give is that he was Scottish, and iced in Glasgow. More speculatively, he seems to have been economically hard off in the early 1950s, but presented a good face—if sometimes overly solicitous. He was skeptical of those in power. He seems to have been lonely, and may have been relatively old at the time he joined the Society. He did have nice penmanship.
Judging by the letters he wrote to Russell—Russell’s replies are not preserved—Grant got in contact with the Fortean Society toward the end of 1949; his opening letter is also not saved. Russell then sent him some copies of Doubt, which he received just before Christmas. Subsequently, fired by the enthusiasm of the novice, Grant wrote a number of letters, the correspondence between him and Russell particularly heavy early on. All told, there are 11 letters from Grant to Russell, 5 of them from between January and June 1950, three from October 1950 to January 1951, then two from 1952, and one undated.
The Doubts provided by Russell seem to have been Grant’s first contact wth Fort. His initial letter seems to have also included an inquiry about how he could get his hands on Fort’s books. When he finally did read Doubt, he was quite taken: “I do not know how you felt when you first came in contact with such subtle who’s kidding whom but I assure you I am fascinated.” It fit so well with his own approach to life: “Success to me always seemed that I had to conform to certain dogmas arounds a particular thing and strive to the utmost to outdo all others who competed in the same field. I just could not be bothered much preferring to doubt all the dogmas.” Overall, Grant said, he was happy with his choices—happy to read and happy to observe people and their foibles, happy even to work at some unspecified drudgery—but it meant that he didn’t have much money—and that caused him some embarrassment because he wasn’t sure how he could pay for Doubt. He offered to do research for Russell, on any subject he wanted: Grant visited the Mitchell Library every Sunday afternoon. He also acknowledged he might be a pest, and was willing to bear that, too: “All I ask in this . . . is that you be frank with me (I can take it) and let me know if you have not the time of the inclination to correspond with me.”
By the time of Grant’s next letter—the first was at the beginning of January, the second at the end—he had made a discovery at his library: he’d found the Gollancz edition of Fort’s “Lo!” (only after going through the catalog with a fine-tooth comb, he said). The book inspired a pun-ny side of Grant: “Charles has played the ‘dickens’ with a lot of my ideas. He has made me “OliverTwistish” but I have “great expectations” that this “bleak house” I have for a head will soon hold some better ones. (Men have been murdered for less than that, I know, but Hooten [where Russell lived] is a long way from here.)” Grant was in a mood to talk about what he’d read, and asked Russell for any Forteans in Glasgow. He wanted to drop Fort’s use of the word “expression” into his conversations. And he wanted to read more—he looked into Sergei Chakhotin’s “Rape of the Masses,” which was frequently advertised in Doubt, but could not find it at the library. As he had with his other letter, Grant included some newspaper clippings.
The third letter, dated 14 February, showed that Grant was now reading newspapers with a Fortean eye. By his own account, he’d always been skeptical of the press, but now he was looking for particular outrages against common sense. The letter was sent entirely to report on one incident. He’d noted that Thayer was running a campaign against fingerprinting and lie detectors as policing technologies. Now, Scotland had done them one better: the authorities were using as evidence in a murder case some kind of saliva test that proved cigarettes had been smoked by a certain person. As a postscript, he noted that some members of the Glasgow police department were being fêted at the same time the department was facing accusations of rampant brutality. More proof that those in charge cared little for anyone but themselves.
It seems that Russell did not respond to that last letter, and perhaps not to an earlier one, either, which put Grant on edge. When he wrote again on 18 February, he opened anxiously: “Did I fall or was I pushed I ask in all sincerity as i have painfully pondered this problem for about 3 months.” Grant couldn’t figure out why the silence from Russell. In one letter, Grant had been addressed as “Worshipful Brother,” and now there was no reply at all. He worried that he’d asked too many questions, worried that the clippings he sent in had not been up to snuff. (Given the quality of clippings, this seems a naive concern.) Maybe it was the puns and word games? “But, Sir! I was only an apprentice Fortean and I want the low down delivered good and hard.”
The waiting would have continued, which, judging by Grant’s state, must have been close to unbearable. But Russell did write again—and when Grant replied on 22 June, he was relieved. He understood, now, that Russell was very busy and could not write continuously, but he still valued Grant as a Fortean. There’s every reason to believe that this was an honest assessment from Russell. A couple of months earlier, in March, Thayer wrote to Russell saying “Alex Grant has the touch, hasn’t he?” The two had obviously been in contact about Grant, and approved—rare enough that they appreciated a new Fortean.
Grant took the approval as a sign to send copious amounts of material. He sent clippings—one related to Gef the Talking Mongoose, another to Thayer’s pet project of proving a connection between tonsillectomies and polio; a third had to do with a boy who could not feel pain. He complimented Russell’s writing—he’s picked up a back issue of “Astounding Science Fiction” and happened across an old story, which he liked. Grant said he’d given up science fiction reading years ago, chased away by the jargon, and so appreciated russell’s clear style. He praised the writing in Doubt, too, by Russell and Thayer and Hoernlein, and the art by Castillo. He also sent Russell a drawing. He’d been an amateur artist for years, having tried but failed to sell his works, and at least some of it was science fictional; he wanted Russell’s opinion of it, as a science fiction writer.
Despite the abundance of material, he ended his missive with an acknowledgment that he would no longer pressure Russell for a response. Apparently, he’d been sending a self-addressed envelope with his other letters, but now realized that might be too forward—“a kind of blackmail.” There was real emotion here, real fear—and real expense, when Grant couldn’t afford any—though he played it off as a joke: “I can picture the agony of mind you must have when a Scotsman send a two pence ha’penny stamped for a reply. It really is a scurvy trick on our part Bro. and I’m sorry.”
Still, the exchange seems to have cooled Grant somewhat—he still loved the Fortean Society, but would push less. His next letter didn’t come for four months. By that time, he’d become impatient waiting for Thayer to get the next issue of the magazine out: “Like a bad coin I turn up again and assure you that I am as full of doubt as ever but still suffer from the old trouble—I can’t get my full of “DOUBT.” I don’t get enough of that subtle salami to satisfy my soul and I am in perpetual purgatory lest I miss a copy.” By this point, Grant had every issue from 16 through 29, and wondered what the publication schedule was so he knew when to expect the next one. (Doubt 29 had come out in July, but reached Britain late, probably in August.) He also had to admit that he was still not in a financial position to pay for Doubt.
The lack of payment was the most obvious way Grant did not feel a full Fortean—but there were others, too. He still felt awed by Thayer and unsure of what was required of a member. Thayer had told members again and again not to use Scotch tape on their clippings—it made it too difficult for him to sort and file. But Grant was not aware of this Americanism, and afraid that he was inadvertently sinning. So to make it easy on Russell, in addition to the clippings he sent a table of contents. They ranged from standard Forteana—rains of frogs, lightning striking twice——to the political—religious pilgrims trapped, polio. But the raw fact of the mater was that Grant did understand Thayer and his Fortean Society. He ended with a joke perfectly sensible to the Secretary: “Garry Davis recants, retreats or repents. ‘It was all a hoax’ ‘lemme be an Amurikan Citizen again, quick!”
Finally, Grant came to accept that he was in the know, Fortean-wise, when he received Doubt 30. This issue came out in October, or thereabouts, and Russell passed it on. Grant got around to commenting in December: “To say that I am delighted is to put it too mild. I think I can take credit for three items in it and I am so pleased to know that I can spot the things that interest the Fortean Fraternity but I did not expect to see my name in print in such a unique mag. and among such unique people as contribute to it. And I may say that to see Artist Castillo’s illust. to the item re: the poor widow of Vienna, is a treat that I find hard to express my delight of. It is credited to ‘Anon’ but as I have not put my name on a lot of cuttings I am going to give myself a pat on the back anyway every time I see one printed.”
Finding his way into the Fortean fold fueled Grant’s enthusiasm. He reported that he continued to pester the librarian to get the books of Charles Fort; he was also in contact with Thayer—whom he called “the New Yorker”—and was told a cheap edition might be printed soon, which had him excited, too. (That never came to pass.) In the meantime, he was taking the pulse of other Forteana: he was on the look out for flying saucer news, but reported that Scotland expressed little interest in the subject. (He wondered Russell’s opinion of Frank Scully’s “Behind the Flying Saucers” and looked forward to Gerard Heard’s book on the topic after seeing an excerpt.) He’d been reading Thor Heyerdahl’s book on the Kon-Tiki, which incidentally answered a query Thayer had printed: were the Easter Island sculptures made of indigenous rock? (yes); and he’d also discovered in the library Hamish MacHuisdean’s “Yesterday’s Impossibilities,” which was a book on mathematical manipulations that attacked contemporary forms of knowledge. Modern astronomy, for example, could not predict eclipses, but Babylonian versions of it could. He also came across reference to MacHuisdean’s three volume “The Great Law,” which he looked forward to investigating.
By the beginning of the next year (1951), Russell had caught up replying to Grant’s various letters, and Grant responded by sending another epistle on 1 January. It was rushed, he said, because he was worried that Russell might go out and spend money on “The Great Law.” Grant had tracked down the second volume; he’d rolled his eyes at the Biblical and God nonsense, but bristled when humans were said to be evil. He could no longer endorse the book—even as the geometry intrigued him and he couldn;t help but connect it to another mainstay of Thayer’s Fortean Society, Frank Lonc’s Cosmic Constant. All told, though, and by his own admission, he’d fallen down a rabbit hole, spending his two-hours in the library every Sunday looking for ways to debunk Hamish. Having worked himself around to appreciating the book again, in some way, Grant went on to wonder if there was anyone else Russell knew who was interested in geometry with whom he could correspond. He also sent in some clippings—and apologized for ones he had lost.
He wrote again sometime early in the year—this is the undated letter, but it comments on Doubt 31, which came out in January 1951. Grant continued impress by Thayer’s writerly skills, and took great delights in his headlines and his evisceration of Frank Scully’s book on flying saucers. Otherwise, this was a short letter, and came without any clippings. Otherwise, as indicated by Grant’s December letter, he had been appearing in Doubt, though it is hard to trace his contributions. One reason is, as he said, he did not put his name on all or most of his clippings. Another reason is that there were at least two other Grants in the Society, maybe three: A Grant from Philadelphia and another from Mississippi with some credits also going to a W.P. Grant who may have been either of those or someone else altogether. But it is not too important to track his clippings, since his interest in Forteana can be gauged by his letters, and seems to have been broad and broadly congruent with Thayer’s enthusiasms.
And Thayer did appreciate Grant. In Doubt 37 (June 1952), he called him “The Sage of Glasgow” for quipping, “If we stopped buying newspapers I’m sure they would deliver them free, after a week, for their propaganda.” Grant’s economic situation seems to have made it impossible for him to always pay his dues, but Thayer didn’t mind. In December 1952 Thayer said he was happy to carry Grant as a member, gratis, and reiterated the point in 1957, which indicates that Grant continued his interest in the Society long after he corresponded with Russell, and even as it must have become difficult for him to keep up with any kind of reading and writing. Thayer said, “Grant is carried because he is a dear; wrote him condolences on losing his sight, that is the worst.”
There is a lacuna here, after January 1951, as Grant did not write to Russell again for more than a year and a half. It seems that he did not give up on Forteanism, but find a more responsive outlet. In April 1952 (Doubt 36), Thayer announced that Grant had finally ponied up the dough to be a member, and was requesting correspondents:
“A good Fortean in Glasgow who has been sending first class data for years—as a non-member—writes, ‘it was always a toss up between my fags and your fee . . . your fee always lost the toss. but now I have sent the necessary to Mr. Russell. . . Are there any Forteans willing to correspond with a fellow whose grammar may be a bit wobbly but whose enthusiasm is as steady as a rock and who would be willing to help in research or note anything of interest relating to phenomena or the mystifying?’
“His grammar looks okay to YS, who never touches the stuff. Write to Alex Grant, 29 Burghead Drive, Glasgow, S.W. 1, Scotland.”
Grant was surprised that no Fortean wrote to him asking for help doing research—that was what Grant really wanted to do, research—but he had gotten four correspondents. One was Judith L. Gee. Another was Agnes Ritchie. Gee, he noted, was writing him about once a week. She was a “rabid Zionist” and had bitched to him about Russell’s anti-Semitism—which surprised Grant, because he did not take Russell for an anti-Semite. Ritchie, he thought, was a “nice old soul,” but he could not place her as well. In both cases, he felt outclassed by the woman’s intelligence, but he was still willing to argue back and forth. Clearly, Grant was feeling more comfortable. He complimented Russell’s story in Astounding Science Fiction, “Fast Falls the Even Tide,” but admitted that while it was “very good” it did not please him as much as his story for Unknown, “With a Blunt Instrument.” Meanwhile, he also continued to correspond (sporadically, it seems) with Thayer and send in clippings that he knew he’d like. He was also looking to read a book by Thayer.
The last dated letter comes from a month later, in November 1952. Grant was continuing on about his correspondence with Judith Gee, and put off Russell’s request to give personal information about her. Russell and Thayer were perpetually interested in her, and certain she was a lonely old woman, but all Grant allowed—since he didn’t have her permission—was that she was definitely not lonely. He was still pleased with the Fortean Society—he’d received numerous credits in Doubt 38, as well as second-prize on Thayer’s mock contest for best contribution. He also continued to be interested in flying saucers, and contribute material on that subject. But it seems clear that he’d finally gotten what he wanted out of the Society—which were conversational partners, and so didn’t need Russell as much, though he remained very appreciative.
The Doubts provided by Russell seem to have been Grant’s first contact wth Fort. His initial letter seems to have also included an inquiry about how he could get his hands on Fort’s books. When he finally did read Doubt, he was quite taken: “I do not know how you felt when you first came in contact with such subtle who’s kidding whom but I assure you I am fascinated.” It fit so well with his own approach to life: “Success to me always seemed that I had to conform to certain dogmas arounds a particular thing and strive to the utmost to outdo all others who competed in the same field. I just could not be bothered much preferring to doubt all the dogmas.” Overall, Grant said, he was happy with his choices—happy to read and happy to observe people and their foibles, happy even to work at some unspecified drudgery—but it meant that he didn’t have much money—and that caused him some embarrassment because he wasn’t sure how he could pay for Doubt. He offered to do research for Russell, on any subject he wanted: Grant visited the Mitchell Library every Sunday afternoon. He also acknowledged he might be a pest, and was willing to bear that, too: “All I ask in this . . . is that you be frank with me (I can take it) and let me know if you have not the time of the inclination to correspond with me.”
By the time of Grant’s next letter—the first was at the beginning of January, the second at the end—he had made a discovery at his library: he’d found the Gollancz edition of Fort’s “Lo!” (only after going through the catalog with a fine-tooth comb, he said). The book inspired a pun-ny side of Grant: “Charles has played the ‘dickens’ with a lot of my ideas. He has made me “OliverTwistish” but I have “great expectations” that this “bleak house” I have for a head will soon hold some better ones. (Men have been murdered for less than that, I know, but Hooten [where Russell lived] is a long way from here.)” Grant was in a mood to talk about what he’d read, and asked Russell for any Forteans in Glasgow. He wanted to drop Fort’s use of the word “expression” into his conversations. And he wanted to read more—he looked into Sergei Chakhotin’s “Rape of the Masses,” which was frequently advertised in Doubt, but could not find it at the library. As he had with his other letter, Grant included some newspaper clippings.
The third letter, dated 14 February, showed that Grant was now reading newspapers with a Fortean eye. By his own account, he’d always been skeptical of the press, but now he was looking for particular outrages against common sense. The letter was sent entirely to report on one incident. He’d noted that Thayer was running a campaign against fingerprinting and lie detectors as policing technologies. Now, Scotland had done them one better: the authorities were using as evidence in a murder case some kind of saliva test that proved cigarettes had been smoked by a certain person. As a postscript, he noted that some members of the Glasgow police department were being fêted at the same time the department was facing accusations of rampant brutality. More proof that those in charge cared little for anyone but themselves.
It seems that Russell did not respond to that last letter, and perhaps not to an earlier one, either, which put Grant on edge. When he wrote again on 18 February, he opened anxiously: “Did I fall or was I pushed I ask in all sincerity as i have painfully pondered this problem for about 3 months.” Grant couldn’t figure out why the silence from Russell. In one letter, Grant had been addressed as “Worshipful Brother,” and now there was no reply at all. He worried that he’d asked too many questions, worried that the clippings he sent in had not been up to snuff. (Given the quality of clippings, this seems a naive concern.) Maybe it was the puns and word games? “But, Sir! I was only an apprentice Fortean and I want the low down delivered good and hard.”
The waiting would have continued, which, judging by Grant’s state, must have been close to unbearable. But Russell did write again—and when Grant replied on 22 June, he was relieved. He understood, now, that Russell was very busy and could not write continuously, but he still valued Grant as a Fortean. There’s every reason to believe that this was an honest assessment from Russell. A couple of months earlier, in March, Thayer wrote to Russell saying “Alex Grant has the touch, hasn’t he?” The two had obviously been in contact about Grant, and approved—rare enough that they appreciated a new Fortean.
Grant took the approval as a sign to send copious amounts of material. He sent clippings—one related to Gef the Talking Mongoose, another to Thayer’s pet project of proving a connection between tonsillectomies and polio; a third had to do with a boy who could not feel pain. He complimented Russell’s writing—he’s picked up a back issue of “Astounding Science Fiction” and happened across an old story, which he liked. Grant said he’d given up science fiction reading years ago, chased away by the jargon, and so appreciated russell’s clear style. He praised the writing in Doubt, too, by Russell and Thayer and Hoernlein, and the art by Castillo. He also sent Russell a drawing. He’d been an amateur artist for years, having tried but failed to sell his works, and at least some of it was science fictional; he wanted Russell’s opinion of it, as a science fiction writer.
Despite the abundance of material, he ended his missive with an acknowledgment that he would no longer pressure Russell for a response. Apparently, he’d been sending a self-addressed envelope with his other letters, but now realized that might be too forward—“a kind of blackmail.” There was real emotion here, real fear—and real expense, when Grant couldn’t afford any—though he played it off as a joke: “I can picture the agony of mind you must have when a Scotsman send a two pence ha’penny stamped for a reply. It really is a scurvy trick on our part Bro. and I’m sorry.”
Still, the exchange seems to have cooled Grant somewhat—he still loved the Fortean Society, but would push less. His next letter didn’t come for four months. By that time, he’d become impatient waiting for Thayer to get the next issue of the magazine out: “Like a bad coin I turn up again and assure you that I am as full of doubt as ever but still suffer from the old trouble—I can’t get my full of “DOUBT.” I don’t get enough of that subtle salami to satisfy my soul and I am in perpetual purgatory lest I miss a copy.” By this point, Grant had every issue from 16 through 29, and wondered what the publication schedule was so he knew when to expect the next one. (Doubt 29 had come out in July, but reached Britain late, probably in August.) He also had to admit that he was still not in a financial position to pay for Doubt.
The lack of payment was the most obvious way Grant did not feel a full Fortean—but there were others, too. He still felt awed by Thayer and unsure of what was required of a member. Thayer had told members again and again not to use Scotch tape on their clippings—it made it too difficult for him to sort and file. But Grant was not aware of this Americanism, and afraid that he was inadvertently sinning. So to make it easy on Russell, in addition to the clippings he sent a table of contents. They ranged from standard Forteana—rains of frogs, lightning striking twice——to the political—religious pilgrims trapped, polio. But the raw fact of the mater was that Grant did understand Thayer and his Fortean Society. He ended with a joke perfectly sensible to the Secretary: “Garry Davis recants, retreats or repents. ‘It was all a hoax’ ‘lemme be an Amurikan Citizen again, quick!”
Finally, Grant came to accept that he was in the know, Fortean-wise, when he received Doubt 30. This issue came out in October, or thereabouts, and Russell passed it on. Grant got around to commenting in December: “To say that I am delighted is to put it too mild. I think I can take credit for three items in it and I am so pleased to know that I can spot the things that interest the Fortean Fraternity but I did not expect to see my name in print in such a unique mag. and among such unique people as contribute to it. And I may say that to see Artist Castillo’s illust. to the item re: the poor widow of Vienna, is a treat that I find hard to express my delight of. It is credited to ‘Anon’ but as I have not put my name on a lot of cuttings I am going to give myself a pat on the back anyway every time I see one printed.”
Finding his way into the Fortean fold fueled Grant’s enthusiasm. He reported that he continued to pester the librarian to get the books of Charles Fort; he was also in contact with Thayer—whom he called “the New Yorker”—and was told a cheap edition might be printed soon, which had him excited, too. (That never came to pass.) In the meantime, he was taking the pulse of other Forteana: he was on the look out for flying saucer news, but reported that Scotland expressed little interest in the subject. (He wondered Russell’s opinion of Frank Scully’s “Behind the Flying Saucers” and looked forward to Gerard Heard’s book on the topic after seeing an excerpt.) He’d been reading Thor Heyerdahl’s book on the Kon-Tiki, which incidentally answered a query Thayer had printed: were the Easter Island sculptures made of indigenous rock? (yes); and he’d also discovered in the library Hamish MacHuisdean’s “Yesterday’s Impossibilities,” which was a book on mathematical manipulations that attacked contemporary forms of knowledge. Modern astronomy, for example, could not predict eclipses, but Babylonian versions of it could. He also came across reference to MacHuisdean’s three volume “The Great Law,” which he looked forward to investigating.
By the beginning of the next year (1951), Russell had caught up replying to Grant’s various letters, and Grant responded by sending another epistle on 1 January. It was rushed, he said, because he was worried that Russell might go out and spend money on “The Great Law.” Grant had tracked down the second volume; he’d rolled his eyes at the Biblical and God nonsense, but bristled when humans were said to be evil. He could no longer endorse the book—even as the geometry intrigued him and he couldn;t help but connect it to another mainstay of Thayer’s Fortean Society, Frank Lonc’s Cosmic Constant. All told, though, and by his own admission, he’d fallen down a rabbit hole, spending his two-hours in the library every Sunday looking for ways to debunk Hamish. Having worked himself around to appreciating the book again, in some way, Grant went on to wonder if there was anyone else Russell knew who was interested in geometry with whom he could correspond. He also sent in some clippings—and apologized for ones he had lost.
He wrote again sometime early in the year—this is the undated letter, but it comments on Doubt 31, which came out in January 1951. Grant continued impress by Thayer’s writerly skills, and took great delights in his headlines and his evisceration of Frank Scully’s book on flying saucers. Otherwise, this was a short letter, and came without any clippings. Otherwise, as indicated by Grant’s December letter, he had been appearing in Doubt, though it is hard to trace his contributions. One reason is, as he said, he did not put his name on all or most of his clippings. Another reason is that there were at least two other Grants in the Society, maybe three: A Grant from Philadelphia and another from Mississippi with some credits also going to a W.P. Grant who may have been either of those or someone else altogether. But it is not too important to track his clippings, since his interest in Forteana can be gauged by his letters, and seems to have been broad and broadly congruent with Thayer’s enthusiasms.
And Thayer did appreciate Grant. In Doubt 37 (June 1952), he called him “The Sage of Glasgow” for quipping, “If we stopped buying newspapers I’m sure they would deliver them free, after a week, for their propaganda.” Grant’s economic situation seems to have made it impossible for him to always pay his dues, but Thayer didn’t mind. In December 1952 Thayer said he was happy to carry Grant as a member, gratis, and reiterated the point in 1957, which indicates that Grant continued his interest in the Society long after he corresponded with Russell, and even as it must have become difficult for him to keep up with any kind of reading and writing. Thayer said, “Grant is carried because he is a dear; wrote him condolences on losing his sight, that is the worst.”
There is a lacuna here, after January 1951, as Grant did not write to Russell again for more than a year and a half. It seems that he did not give up on Forteanism, but find a more responsive outlet. In April 1952 (Doubt 36), Thayer announced that Grant had finally ponied up the dough to be a member, and was requesting correspondents:
“A good Fortean in Glasgow who has been sending first class data for years—as a non-member—writes, ‘it was always a toss up between my fags and your fee . . . your fee always lost the toss. but now I have sent the necessary to Mr. Russell. . . Are there any Forteans willing to correspond with a fellow whose grammar may be a bit wobbly but whose enthusiasm is as steady as a rock and who would be willing to help in research or note anything of interest relating to phenomena or the mystifying?’
“His grammar looks okay to YS, who never touches the stuff. Write to Alex Grant, 29 Burghead Drive, Glasgow, S.W. 1, Scotland.”
Grant was surprised that no Fortean wrote to him asking for help doing research—that was what Grant really wanted to do, research—but he had gotten four correspondents. One was Judith L. Gee. Another was Agnes Ritchie. Gee, he noted, was writing him about once a week. She was a “rabid Zionist” and had bitched to him about Russell’s anti-Semitism—which surprised Grant, because he did not take Russell for an anti-Semite. Ritchie, he thought, was a “nice old soul,” but he could not place her as well. In both cases, he felt outclassed by the woman’s intelligence, but he was still willing to argue back and forth. Clearly, Grant was feeling more comfortable. He complimented Russell’s story in Astounding Science Fiction, “Fast Falls the Even Tide,” but admitted that while it was “very good” it did not please him as much as his story for Unknown, “With a Blunt Instrument.” Meanwhile, he also continued to correspond (sporadically, it seems) with Thayer and send in clippings that he knew he’d like. He was also looking to read a book by Thayer.
The last dated letter comes from a month later, in November 1952. Grant was continuing on about his correspondence with Judith Gee, and put off Russell’s request to give personal information about her. Russell and Thayer were perpetually interested in her, and certain she was a lonely old woman, but all Grant allowed—since he didn’t have her permission—was that she was definitely not lonely. He was still pleased with the Fortean Society—he’d received numerous credits in Doubt 38, as well as second-prize on Thayer’s mock contest for best contribution. He also continued to be interested in flying saucers, and contribute material on that subject. But it seems clear that he’d finally gotten what he wanted out of the Society—which were conversational partners, and so didn’t need Russell as much, though he remained very appreciative.
