41 FAB Years - Fanderson

On Thursday, 20th August 1981, Gerry Anderson invited fans of his work to meet him at his office at Pinewood Studios, and together they formed Fanderson.

On Saturday, 20th August 2022, Fanderson members celebrated Gerry and Sylvia’s work, and the club itself at the 40th birthday bash (albeit one year late, due to Covid-19!).

Deliberately designed to be a social event rather than a convention, club members enjoyed music, models, puppets and lots of chat as it had been three years since they’d been able to get together (at our Supercelebration convention back in 2019). We were delighted that puppeteers Mary Turner and Judy Preece were available to celebrate with us too. It was a perfect day, weather-wise, and so we were able to enjoy the garden of the Pinewood Hotel much of the time, especially for the barbecue and cake (lots of cake!).

The event package included a birthday card, poster, badge and the first issue of our new club magazine, FAB Express.

Club secretary John Wilkinson also set a couple of quizzes for anyone with time on their hands:

a headlines quiz asked members to state the year for 40 Daily Mirror headlines
the particularly fiendish episode synopses quiz asked members to identify Anderson episodes from their TV Times listings

You can have a go now (just for fun) and the answers are below the photos.

Well done to our winners Lily Ride (31 out of 40 headlines correct) and Mark Castell (32 out of 40 episodes correct) who each win a lifetime Fanderson membership and Zavvi’s reissued Topps trading cards or vinyl EP boxset (respectively).

Well done to all who took part in the quizzes, and a big thank you to everyone who was able to attend and/or contribute to our 40 FAB Years!