That was the end of my TAFF trip, but the duties of a TAFF winner go beyond just making the trip. They have to administer their end of the fund for the next two years, raising money from auctions and sales and donations. They have to collect nominations from candiates and hold elections to determine the next two winners. Finally, they hand over to the next winner from their continent.

(They also have to write a trip report. Ahem.)

I did okay on administering the fund. I raised enough to replenish the funds back to at least the level I inherited from my predecessor, Dave Langford, covering what I had used and what I had handed to the next American winner Avedon Carol in 1983, to finance her stay in the UK.

These days a woman winner wouldn’t be worth remarking on, but back then women were rare in fandom, as I might have mentioned previously. TAFF started in 1954 and Avedon was only the third woman, following Ethel Lindsay (UK to USA) in1962 and June Moffat, who came to the UK as half of Len & June Moffat in 1973. Since then, there has been a much more even split of men and women.

The announcement of the 1984 winner was slightly delayed. The process was simple: add up the European and North American votes. (At least, it was simple for two candidates – most votes wins. But if there were more than two, an elimination process takes place to count 2nd, 3rd etc preferences. Fortunately, I only had to deal with two.)

What I had failed to do in advance was check that I had Avedon’s phone number. I thought I had it, and confidently telephoned, having ensured that it wasn’t the middle of the night in Washington, only to be answered by some bloke who had never heard of any Avedon Carol. So I wrote to her, air mail. Then I got the complaints. The voting deadline had passed; why hadn’t I announced the result? Dave Langford, it turned out, did have the phone number, so I called Avedon and we tallied the votes, to show that Rob Hansen had beaten D. West, like me on the strength of the American vote, having tied in Europe.

(As for the report. Ahem, cough, cough.)