Petersfield Museum is delighted to announce a new science fiction exhibition to The Standfield Gallery on May 4 – known as Star Wars Day to fans of the franchise.
The exhibition will reveal how the local area inspired HG Wells, John Wyndham and Sir Alec Guinness and their work within the science fiction genre.
It will explore how and why they came to live here and how the location impacted their work.
HG Wells – often known as the father of science fiction – is seen as one of the creators of the genre. His imaginative concepts of the future, featuring space exploration, tanks and mobile phones, proved to be visionary.
He lived with his mother who was a housekeeper at Uppark House. His time there influenced his books including The Time Machine in which the Morlocks live in underground tunnels similar to those used by the servants at Uppark.
He also found a telescope in the attic at Uppark, which he used to look into space and imagine other worlds, and his work significantly contributed to the genre of science fiction flourishing throughout the 20th century.
John Wyndham drew inspiration from the brambles of Steep when imagining the Triffids that feature in his Day of the Triffids. His experience at Bedales inspired the development of strong female characters in novels such as in Trouble with Lichen.
Wyndham, a self-declared fan of HG Wells, chose to write about more rational extensions of everyday life instead of adventures in space.
The quintessential English backdrops of his work provided a familiar setting, with disastrous events taking place within them.
This represented a pioneering new take on science fiction.
Although Sir Alec Guinness was not directly inspired by the local area, his home at Kettlebrook Meadows at Steep Marsh provided respite from his work as an actor. He could often be found walking the lanes near his home reciting lines to films he was working on.
He is undoubtedly one of the most legendary actors in the history of science fiction, but his contribution differs from that of Wells and Wyndham.
His acclaim was that of an actor rather than a writer, but his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars cemented him as one of the household names in science fiction.