Jill Tromans: The Moon Walk

A test painting for a character on Goldie’s mural ‘Lost in Space’, 2012. Photograph taken by Martin Jones Provided by: Dudley Archives

In July 1969 the mood was buoyant, as Apollo 11 was preparing for take-off. The world was about to witness the first time a man would step on the moon.

Almost everyone was carried along with the euphoria, except for my grandfather, who appeared to be the only person harbouring concerns. While the rest of the family were enjoying Aunty Edna’s latest batch of fairy cakes, he took me aside to air his misgivings.

“What do you think about all this talk of a man walking on the moon? Do you really think it will happen?”

“It certainly looks that way Granddad,” I told him. I suspect it wasn’t the response he was seeking. He pursed his lips and gently shook his head, before reaching for his pipe. After briefly attempting to ignite the tobacco, he said, “I think they should leave well alone. You don’t know what might happen if we start messing about up there. It could affect the weather. We’ve had a lot of rain recently!”

A few days after the conversation my parents and I enjoyed a short break in Rhyl. As I strolled along the beach barefoot, I watched the damp, beige sand seeping between my toes and pondered whether our two heroes might discover a similar surface when they reached the Sea of Tranquility.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were valorous and gallant men whose names would soon be on the lips of everyone.

Anyone old enough to recall the actual landing — which happened during the night GMT — will be able to remember exactly what they were doing on that joyous day. The Eagle landed at 2.17am our time. Armstrong was first to disembark at 2.56am, and was joined twenty minutes later by Aldrin. The third member of the crew, Michael Collins, remained on the Command Module.

Naturally, the Americans were ecstatic. They had lost credibility eight years earlier when Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Gagarin, the son of a Ukrainian farmer, had earlier served as a member of the backup crew on Soyuz 1, a mission that had ended in a fatal crash. In Vostok 1, he had successfully orbited the earth in April 1961, guaranteeing himself a profusion of accolades and a place in the history books. Sadly, misfortune struck again, when he was piloting a training jet involved in a fatal crash in 1968.

Details of the moon walk provided boundless material for the media for several weeks. There were ambitious claims that visits there, as well as family holidays, would soon be a regular occurrence. I distinctly remember picking up my father’s Daily Mirror one day to find the words We Hope to Visit Mars Very Soon in bold letters.

Back in Rhyl, my father had difficulty locating a betting office. There were many grumblings from my mother regarding a particularly irksome corn and as per usual, she managed to get sunburnt on the first day. It is my belief she never purchased a bottle of suntan lotion in her life but spent a small fortune on aftersun soothers. I have vivid memories of lying awake in our hotel room listening to her complain: “Mind my sunburn, Frank. Keep over your own side!”

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