Walking on the Moon...

Here I am in 1969 at school choir practice.

Those of you who know me will probably recognise me, even though I was only twelve and in my first year at Lord Williams school for boys. I was a day boy; there are a few other day boys in the picture, but most are boarders – School House boys as opposed to New House boys, in-school as opposed to scholar, silver as opposed to Sheffield plate.

If you don’t know me, I hope you have fun guessing which of these I am – I could be any of them, but I’m not, I’m me even then.

I remember a few of these boys, although not all. Of the other boys in this picture (I won’t bore you with their names), one of them went on to be an officer in the army and was killed in Northern Ireland, another is David Tomlinson’s (the father in Disney’s Mary Poppins) son, another had a father who made bespoke harpsichords, and another is a famous musician. The rest are probably just doctors, entrepreneurs, or QC’s these days. Silver as opposed to Sheffield plate.

See, I told you there weren’t many day boys in the choir.

I didn’t know that this picture existed until earlier this week when, browsing Lord Bill’s old boy’s web site, I came across this and a few other pictures of me in my early teens. It came as a bit of a surprise to see me staring out of the picture, I didn’t know that there were any photographs of me at this age, we certainly don’t have any at home - I decided to be ‘unphotographed’ by choice from about eleven onwards. I’m NOT a member of the Old Thamensian Society, but I thank them for my pictures.

I remember the day this photograph was taken.

FLASH! It was the twenty-first of July 1969. I remember it for two reasons – firstly the choir was going to be photographed rehearsing Offenbach (at least I think it was Offenbach) and secondly it was the school day after most of us had stayed up into the early hours watching one man take (a) small step and one huge leap for mankind.

FLASH! ‘Man Walks On The Moon!' The day that Neil Armstrong took the very first step on the moon.

FLASH! Look at our faces. We look a little tired but still full of the wonder of the events that had kept most of us up until past two o’clock that sunny Monday morning.

FLASH! On that day I felt that I could become anything - an artist, a philosopher, an explorer, even an astronaught – please God, an astronaught. Maybe one day I would go to the moon. We would have a colony on the moon by the year 2000, the ‘Sun’ said so - but that was still a lifetime away.

FLASH! Look at my face. In 1969 I was an empty page awaiting the first paragraph of the story.

FLASH! You might not know which one of these boys I am, but I recognise him. I can see who he was and who he’s going to become.

FLASH! The boy that is me is still catching moths, collecting eggs, maybe hasn’t yet given up on Father Christmas. Look at him, concentrating on the music, concentrating on ‘Bones’, the choir and biology master, conducting Offenbach or whatever it was. He doesn’t know on that most optimistic of days that he’s just on the cusp of disappointment, that he’s waiting to learn about failure, learning how to lose his dreams - he doesn’t know that he’ll never be an astronaught and that there won’t be a space station on the moon by the year 2000, despite what it says in the ‘Sun’.

FLASH! Look at him standing there, his school tie crisp with newness, shirt collars not yet frayed, in his grey school suit - so full of hope for the future.

FLASH! I remember the photographer in his tweed jacket and trilby hat. ‘Don’t look at the camera, look at the master’. FLASH! I remember the photographer’s flash attachment, round and silver. He held it high as he pressed the button. ‘Hold it!’ FLASH! It shone like the moon and left a green after image that faded away slowly. FLASH! In 1969 they landed on the moon and I was photographed singing in the school choir. FLASH! There was no digital photography back then - in our house we had a black and white TV, a fridge, an iron, and a transistor radio - we didn’t have a phone or central heating, not even an electric toaster, but somehow they still managed to put a man on the moon!

I’ve been there and seen it. No, not the moon, the Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida - I went a few years back with a group of friends from work. I saw the launch pad, the Apollo’s, the Gemini’s, moon suits, mission control, landing craft, training pods – I even reached into a glass case and held a piece of the moon, a piece of the moon that Neil Armstrong had picked up and pocketed all those years ago while I was waiting to be photographed singing in the choir.

FLASH! I have held a piece of the moon.

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?

It seems to me that as Neil Armstrong took those first steps on the moon he was on the cusp of disappointment, waiting to learn about failure, learning how to lose his dreams. That piece of moon was little more than a small, grey, stone. The dream of going to the moon had been the thing – and once done, the dream was over.