It Was Forty Years Ago...
I planned to write a blog about the Landing On The Moon when the anniversary came around last month but most of the media covered that in great depth. What are my memories...perhaps not as much as I might've thought at first.
I do remember following most of the space race but the night Apollo 11 landed, I watched it on television and hearing that the Lunar Module had landed safely. Now I don't know if we decided then that the walk on the moon was going to be too late for us to stay up for(My Father and possibly my Mother too)would probably have been at work the next day, perhaps I would be at school(though I think it was school holidays)
Then again back then the UK only had three tv channels and they were all usually off air by midnight-1am. Even during the day they were off air except for broadcasting schools programmes so I guess we also assumed there was no reason to sit up into the early hours but it appears that the Moonwalk was shown somewhere around 4am.
The first time I think I saw any footage of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon was the next day as I was in the town centre and was passing a tv rental shop and the tv's in the window were showing it.
So what else happened in 1969?
There was the pop festival at Woodstock near New York which is still talked about.
The other day British media was talking about the cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road released this year and many Beatles fans were celebrating and turned up(it is a regular occurrence)at the same zebra crossing and tried to recreate the event. Annoying many motorists and people who live in the area near the famous Abbey Road Studio's.
And then of course this was also the year that the horrific murder of the actress Sharon Tate took place which has again been returned to by the media and thanks to the internet and media interest much more detail has been given to this perhaps more than we really need to know.
People often say that the world is worse now than it used to be. Many feel that they had happier times but did we? Is it just that today we have immediate access to what is happening around the world so we hear and see what we may not have in days gone by.
When my Mum was born and a child radio was just starting but access was probably limited. I would assume the next and most immediate way to access news was via a newspaper but again, how much national news would it contain and how much would be locally sourced? A lot of news unless you lived in a big city would probably never reach most of the population.
Were we better knowing less? Who knows.
It does prove that every year has good and bad and large and small stories.
How much of our memory decides rightly or wrongly their importance in the great scheme of things?
I do remember following most of the space race but the night Apollo 11 landed, I watched it on television and hearing that the Lunar Module had landed safely. Now I don't know if we decided then that the walk on the moon was going to be too late for us to stay up for(My Father and possibly my Mother too)would probably have been at work the next day, perhaps I would be at school(though I think it was school holidays)
Then again back then the UK only had three tv channels and they were all usually off air by midnight-1am. Even during the day they were off air except for broadcasting schools programmes so I guess we also assumed there was no reason to sit up into the early hours but it appears that the Moonwalk was shown somewhere around 4am.
The first time I think I saw any footage of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon was the next day as I was in the town centre and was passing a tv rental shop and the tv's in the window were showing it.
So what else happened in 1969?
There was the pop festival at Woodstock near New York which is still talked about.
The other day British media was talking about the cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road released this year and many Beatles fans were celebrating and turned up(it is a regular occurrence)at the same zebra crossing and tried to recreate the event. Annoying many motorists and people who live in the area near the famous Abbey Road Studio's.
And then of course this was also the year that the horrific murder of the actress Sharon Tate took place which has again been returned to by the media and thanks to the internet and media interest much more detail has been given to this perhaps more than we really need to know.
People often say that the world is worse now than it used to be. Many feel that they had happier times but did we? Is it just that today we have immediate access to what is happening around the world so we hear and see what we may not have in days gone by.
When my Mum was born and a child radio was just starting but access was probably limited. I would assume the next and most immediate way to access news was via a newspaper but again, how much national news would it contain and how much would be locally sourced? A lot of news unless you lived in a big city would probably never reach most of the population.
Were we better knowing less? Who knows.
It does prove that every year has good and bad and large and small stories.
How much of our memory decides rightly or wrongly their importance in the great scheme of things?
posted by The Great Gildersleeve | 4:33 pm
2 Comments:
Nice post about the other things happening. I too remember the grainy black and white picture on our 1st TV. I preferred Champion the Wonder Horse on saturday mornings! :-)
I've often toyed with believing the conspiracies: did it happen or not?) but have always suspected something was wrong because there were 6 landings in all over the years '69 to '72 yet we still know almost nothing about the moon. Where are all the indepth surveys of terrain and soil and rock, why didn't they get samples from all over the moon instead of a few palces then presume the rest is the same etc...or did they!...
I wonder how Pete Conrad and Alan Bean felt...'who?' you ask...they were the 2nd pair to land ALSO in 1969 (Nov) yet I bet bearly anyone knows that!!!
You are right again Span...Champion The Wonder Horse...those were the days...The Flashing Blade, Robinson Crusoe, Casey Jones and many more.
As for the landings on the Moon, I'll have to check my information again but I think the crew of Apollo 11 were originally pencilled in to be on Apollo 13 and vice versa, how different would that have been.
Pete Conrad died not so long ago but he had a sense of humour and proved it when he was on the Moon.
Again someone was interviewed on a tribute about the landing remembered Pete.
If we were to sit down and think of all the events we have lived through and witnessed.
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