Growing Up

One of my first memories is of the night when my parents woke me and my brother up to watch the moon landing. I remember the air of ceremony as we were ushered into the living room, my mother’s expression seeming to say, “Behold the marvellous world I have brought you into!” I remember the flickering images and tinny voices on our little black-and-white TV and my ultimate feeling of anticlimax when the event appeared to be over and we were sent back to bed. I was not quite two years old.

Later, like many kids, I became obsessed with space. I owned a book about the universe that I would pore over for hours in my bedroom. There were no glossy close-ups of the moons of Jupiter or panoramic vistas of Mars in it of course – this was the seventies after all – it was all artists’ impressions in drab