Neil Armstrong

When I was 7 years old, back in 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. I remember, at the time, that everyone was amazed by this. Every boy had a collection of Airfix models that either made the Apollo rocket, the Lunar Module or an astronaut. I had an astronaut hanging from my ceiling for years! Blue Peter showed you how to build a rocket out of a Squeezee bottle, together with other parts, and I had one balancing on my window ledge for months. Heinz beans gave away some fantastic posters of the space project that we all had pinned to our walls and Findus gave away free flexi-discs of the voices of the astonauts talking to mission control during the moon landing. For a while, everyone was moon-mad. I remember our teacher at Knowle Primary, in West Park, letting some of the kids in the class watch the moon walks on the tv that was kept by the assembly hall. Everyone had black and white televisions in those days and we all sat mesmerised as we watched the flickering images broadcast live back from the moon. After it was finished, we had to go back to class and tell the other kids, who hadn't been allowed to watch, what it was all like. We were all fascinated by space travel and imagined that people would soon be living on the moon and then Mars. Of course, none of it ever happened and Neil Armstrong's trip seemed to be the peak of NASA's achievement. It seems odd now but when the final man walked on the moon in 1972, just three years later, people had lost interest and were turning off their tellies in their droves. The same thing happened with the Space Shuttle program. It got in the end that, unless one of them crashed, their missions weren't even reported on the news. It was all very incredible but, people being what they are, soon get fed up with it all.
When Neil Armstrong died a couple of days ago, a part of my childhood went  with him. Days of anticipation watching the flight to the moon, the live broadcasts of the moon walks and the pomp and ceremony when the astronauts arrived back on Earth. It was all fascinating stuff especially for a small boy.
I read somewhere that there's more technology in a modern washing machine than there was in the lunar module (although I find it hard to believe!).
They were great days and there's nothing like it nowadays. The 1960s and 1970s were great times, full of adventure, when anything seemed possible.
No matter where space technology takes us, Neil Armstrong will always be remembered for being the first man on the moon and will always remain an icon of the 20th century.