Hacked Off

Progress Monday, 20 July 2009

So, this time forty years ago I was a gobsmacked little kid:  I was up late. Watching telly!

For someone who was normally packed off to bed ASAP so that the bids could have a bit of peace at the end of their day, this was nothing short of incredible. My dad actually wanted me to stay up and watch the telly with him.

‘In years to come you’re going to want to say you watched this. Trust me.’ he might have said. Me, I was too busy asking for another bit of toast and Marmite. And another glass of lemon squash, please, mam.

These blokes called Neil Armstrong and Buzz (“that a daft name, isn’t it dad? why’s he called Buzz?” “he’s American, son, they tend to have funny names.”) Aldrin were going to land on the moon. Apparently this was a big deal, even though back then I used to do it pretty much every week. There was this one time when I made it there and back in about twenty minutes in a cardboard box that up until I remodelled it had been a simple container for an English Electric cooker.

So, they landed on the moon. My dad smiled a lot. My mam shrugged her shoulders and called my dad “a big kid”. I ate a lot of toast and Marmite. Then a fuzzy white blob came down a fuzzy white ladder and bounced about on the fuzzy white screen. People on the telly said it was a Historic Occasion. It certainly was. It was another five years before I got to stay up that late again.