Watch this space ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard to imagine it's now 55 years since Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 mates were heading back to Earth after that famous first landing on the Moon. I remember creeping downstairs as an eight year old to watch them on television, and have had an interest in Space ever since ..

This particular astronaut is my cousin Neil, photographed in about 1977. The shot features in my new Café Royal Books edition, a publication that's bringing back lots of memories for the people who have been buying it ..

Speaking personally, the memory that accompanies this particular photograph is a sad one. Neil was a bit of a troubled lad who, despite his cute little face and his poor parents' keenest efforts, got himself into quite a bit of a mess. He ended up into drugs, going to jail and then, sadly, committing suicide. There's a Neil-shaped space where he could have made so much of himself. Poor lad ..  

 

Thunderbirds are gone...

And just like that, all my Space Heroes are gone! In 2012 we've already lost Neil Armstrong and Patrick Moore and now - just yesterday - Gerry Anderson. If you're one of my overseas readers I think this blog might not mean much and I apologise but, if you grew up in England in the 60s, there was no doubt that you got your first introduction to space and adventure through his work. I never got to meet the first man on the moon - although I did photograph one of his suits once - and I never got to meet the 'mad professor' Moore who made it such fun to learn about space - although I have got his autograph in the front of a book about the universe - but I did photograph Gerry Anderson - and the real 12 inch Captain Scarlet - when they visited a Manchester Sci-fi convention back in the early 90s. It's because of Gerry Anderson that we all grew up wanting to be astronauts - although, for me, poor eyesight and being sh*t scared of sitting in a capsule on top of a 356 foot bomb put paid to that - and it's because of Gerry Anderson that I got two of my earliest nicknames - viz: Joe 90 and Brains!
Erm, I think you can see why....
FAB Gerry Anderson, FAB.....

One Last Giant Leap...

A quick word to mention the passing of Neil Armstrong, the one true hero of my childhood years.

I was mad on space travel, and spent every hour I could either reading about it, drawing pictures of rockets, building papier mache 'lunar surfaces' to land my Airfix Lunar Module on or watching Peter Fairley explain in detail how LOS happened once the Command Module was round the back of the moon. (That's Loss of Signal, but you knew that, right?) I never got to meet the man, though I did get to photograph his Space Suit, which came to visit Manchester once (I know, amazing, aren't they?) and I had it put into a red phone box on King Street in Manchester with the caption 'Armstrong calling' (Or something like that!)...

So there we go! Another of the 'greats' has gone to the Sea of Tranquility! RIP Neil, and here's a shot to give us all a wee smile on a sad day. It's me old 'model' mate Moanin' Minnie, who accompanied me on a six month trip around the world.  My one 'orbit' of our planet...