The customs officer at the J. F. Kennedy airport, New York, opened my case and looked in at the envelopes that filled it. I could see his mind boggle. He was probably wondering what sort of nut would bring a case full of envelopes into America instead of clothes. I began to wonder Just how I was going to explain how I was taking two hundred and fifty 'London in'65' Progress reports seven thousand. miles in my case, as a favour to Ella Parker. He lifted. one of the envelopes up, looked at it then at me. I cou- ghed slightly and said, "Uh, a Convention, in London, in 1965. Ella Parker says" At the mention of Ella he seemed to shrink slightly, dropped the envelope back with the rest, closed the case and waved me on, or away. I picked up the case and walked through the glass swing doors into America. It was three pm Eastern standard time Saturday the 22nd August 1964. Seven hours before at ten am British Summer time I had swung my case from the platform of a bright red double-decker London bus and made my way through the Saturday morning crowds around the Victoria train terminal in the heart of London towards the British Overseas Airways building a hundred yards down the road, where, according to the ticket in my pocket, BOAC flight 503 was waiting to take me three thousand miles across the Atlantic to the United States of America. I was the Taff delegate to the 1964 22nd World Science Fiction Convention that was to take place over Labor Day weekend in Oakland, California. I had four weeks to make the trip in, and would be travelling across America and back again. 4