For five and a half years, the adventure pages of Your Sinclair belonged to Mike Gerrard. The magazine introduced him in May 1986 as an “adventure addict” who was “already well-known for his adventure columns in other computer magazines”, and he set out to “champion the cause of Spectrum adventurers everywhere”. What he built was less a review page than a postbag. Readers wrote in stuck, other readers wrote in with answers, and Gerrard printed both, with names, home towns and running jokes. One of his regular correspondents, John Wilson of Rochdale, was crowned “the Rochdale Balrog” in Gerrard’s first column and went on to found one of the last adventure publishers, Zenobi Software.
Fast facts
- Reviewer: Personal Computer News, 1983–1985.
- Columns: the adventure column in Dragon User from August 1984; Your Sinclair’s adventure pages from issue 5 (May 1986) to issue 69 (September 1991); adventures for Zero from 1989.
- Books: adventure books, including Adventures on the Spectrum.
- Game: One of Our Wombats Is Missing, a Spectrum adventure published by Zenobi.
- Family: the brother of Peter Gerrard, author of books on Commodore adventures.
Before Your Sinclair
Gerrard was reviewing games for the weekly Personal Computer News by 1983. His review of Manic Miner in August that year is one of the first records of the game: he liked the on-off switch for its music and concluded that it was “original and amusing as well as hard to master, and I haven’t enjoyed a game so much since I first encountered Donkey Kong.” In August 1984 Dragon User launched his monthly adventure column, “which takes a look at the latest and the greatest in adventures for the Dragon”. His brother Peter wrote about adventures too; in 1986 Dragon User described Peter as the “brother of our own Mike Gerrard”. By the time Your Sinclair hired him it could say that he had also “written several adventure books and articles for the Guardian”.
A column made of letters
Gerrard’s first Your Sinclair column, in May 1986, set the pattern. He asked to hear from anyone who thought they had been first to finish an adventure, and then awarded the title himself: “There’s no doubt in my mind, though, that the ‘El Supremo’ title has to go to John Wilson of Rochdale, who’s first in with completed solutions… I hereby declare him the Rochdale Balrog.” He divided his correspondents into Lost Souls, who needed help, and Kind Souls, who offered it, and printed their addresses so they could write to each other.
The letters are a portrait of who played Spectrum adventures. A single column in 1986 has Pat Spencer of Ballymun in Dublin needing “any help at all” on two games, Stephen Parker “submerged in Seabase Delta”, and “a middle-aged mum… losing her sanity somewhere in Norfolk”, who won Gerrard’s newly invented Manuel-of-the-Month award for owning several adventures and finishing none. When Alex Marsh of Billericay sent in a long list of completed games and asked to be known as “El Supremo 2”, Gerrard refused, and led the readers in a football chant: “All together now: ‘One Rochdale Balrog… There’s only one Rochdale Balrog.’”
Wilson remained a character in the column for years. In 1988 Gerrard reported that the Balrog had written to correct him: a free ferry ride Gerrard had suggested was an adventure first had appeared in Wilson’s own game 18 months earlier. “The Balrog dares to suggest that the only reason I couldn’t remember was because I didn’t get that far in the game! What a cheek!” By then many of the answers in the column were printed backwards: “Too dark to see? TI ENIMAXE DNA KCOR DNIF.”
He also reviewed the tools that let readers write their own games. When Gilsoft’s PAW arrived in 1987, Gerrard counted what a single sentence could hold and expected a flood of new adventures to follow.
Moving on
Gerrard said goodbye in September 1991, after “five and a half years”, in what he called “probably the hardest bit of writing I’ve ever had to do” for the magazine. A publisher had offered him a book to write, which would occupy him for three months, and after that he had “to start work writing something for the radio”. He ended by repeating the opening words of his very first column: “these are going to be some of the best adventure pages around, so keep reading ’em.” His successor was Tim Kemp, editor of the adventure fanzine From Beyond.
He also wrote adventures as well as reviewing them. Zenobi published his Spectrum game One of Our Wombats Is Missing; CRASH reviewed it at £2.49 in 1991, giving it 61%. A writer named Mike Gerrard, whom the IFWiki adventure database identifies as the same man, later became an award-winning travel and drinks writer, with more than forty guidebooks and three radio plays to his name.
Sources
- Personal Computer News, 11–17 August 1983, p. 48: Manic Miner review by Mike Gerrard.
- Dragon User, August 1984: contents page, “Our new monthly feature by Mike Gerrard”.
- Dragon User, June 1986: Peter Gerrard, “brother of our own Mike Gerrard”.
- Your Sinclair issue 5, May 1986, p. 62: Gerrard introduced; his first column (El Supremo and the Rochdale Balrog; Lost Souls and Kind Souls).
- Your Sinclair issue 10, October 1986: Pat Spencer, Stephen Parker, the Manuel-of-the-Month award, Alex Marsh and the chant.
- Your Sinclair issue 18, June 1987: PAW review by Mike Gerrard.
- Your Sinclair issue 32, August 1988: the reversed clues; the Rochdale Balrog and the ferry ride.
- Your Sinclair issue 69, September 1991: Gerrard’s farewell column; Tim Kemp named as his successor.
- Your Sinclair issue 72, December 1991: Zenobi’s offer on One of Our Wombats Is Missing.
- CRASH issue 91, August 1991, p. 55: One of Our Wombats Is Missing review (Zenobi, £2.49, 61%).
- Zero, October 1989: subscription advertisement, “Adventures with Mike Gerrard”.
- Your Sinclair issue 90, June 1993: reader’s advertisement for Adventures on the Spectrum, “a book by Mike Gerrard”.
- IFWiki, “Mike Gerrard” (web, secondary): his columns, books and games, and his later career as a travel writer. https://ifwiki.org/Mike_Gerrard
- Mike Gerrard, personal website (web, secondary): travel and drinks writing, more than forty guidebooks, three radio plays. https://www.mikegerrard.com/