FLY ME TO THE MOON

My mother had four brothers and fours sisters. Eileen, my favourite aunt did not marry but the other girls did. Mary, contrary as ever, married a man called Jack. The others married men called George. There was not much creativity around at that time.

The eldest George was the Court Jester of the family, the youngest, my dad, was easy going and content to follow the crowd. The third George, however, was a miserable man whose cup was three quarters empty. I later found out there were reasons for this. His wife was the opposite, always keen on fun and celebrations.

Every summer Aunt Lil would hold a barbecue, and to be fair, Uncle George seemed content to allow the family to maraud in his beautiful garden, I guess we kids were warned to be on our best behaviour.

As we walked back from the barbecue, dad keeping a firm grasp on my hand, I kept looking over my shoulder.

‘Dad,’ I gasped, ‘the moon’s following me. It has been since we left Aunt Lil’s.’

‘It’s not really,’ he said, ‘it’s just an optical illusion.’

I didn’t know what he meant by this but I knew that he was wrong. The moon really was following me.

This ignited in me a fierce passion for astronomy. I persuaded my dad to buy me a telescope. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realised that it was a terrestrial telescope and pretty much useless for looking at the heavens.

I saved up and bought a less elegant one, basically two lenses in a couple of cardboard tubes but I could see the craters of the moon and even some smudges on Mars. These may have been caused by my dirty fingers, of course.

When I was twelve my headteacher took me on one side. ‘I know you want to be an astronomer but you need to be very good at maths to stand a chance. You’ve got many talents but, alas, definitely not maths. Try to think of some other career.’

To be honest, this was not the first time that I realised that things extra-terrestrial might not be for me. A few years before, I came home and put the television on to find the screen full of static. I realise now that the aerial must have come out of the socket. Then, however, I convinced myself that there was a different reason. It was obvious that the static was a signal from outer space.

I hurried back to the park and gathered some kids around.

‘There’s a flying saucer in the sky,’ I said, - helpfully pointing in that direction.

‘It wants to land but can’t find anywhere safe. The spacemen say that if we wave something red they will notice and land. We’ll be the first kids ever to see a spaceship.’

The kids ran home to get something red; I didn’t need to because, fortuitously, I was wearing a red pullover. They were back within minutes clutching, jerseys, hats and scarfs in all shades of red.

‘I’ll do a countdown,’ I said, ‘and when I reach zero, wave like mad.’

The kids shuffled with excitement as I counted down, ‘five, four, three, two, one, zero. Now wave.’

There was a frenzy of waving. I must have soon realised that no flying saucer was going to land. How could it when I had fabricated the whole idea? My tummy growled nervously. Still the kids waved. Then most slowed down, a few stopped and one threw down his jumper and belligerently demanded why there was no sign of a spaceship.

I glared at him even more belligerently, trying not to panic. Inspiration came. ‘It’s all your fault,’ I said. ‘Hardly any of you were waving hard enough. Most of you looked like you were waving to your granny on a bus. You were rubbish.’

The kids looked shamefaced. I put on my jumper and marched off in fabricated dudgeon. When I got home the television was working again and Fireball XL5 was just starting. Perfect.

I never became an astronomer.