Moon Memories and another memory

I still remember the day in 1963, when Walter Cronkite, who has just died, announced the death of President Kennedy. A much admired journalist, Walter Cronkite lived through amazing times, but I can see him still, trying to retain his professionalism, fighting back the tears, taking off his glasses and putting them back on, as he told the world of the tragedy that had taken place.

Six years later, men landed on the moon, as Kennedy had forecast.

To commemorate the anniversary of the moon landing tomorrow - or possibly today, in some places, I've taken extracts of my description of that day and memories of that period, as told in my autobiographical book, The Fruit of the Tree. Just as men had made an amazing scientific achievement, we were in effect going back to a very basic life style, more befitting the early part of the 20th century.

'...We spent the weekend of the 19th July in Hove, relaxing for a change, before the impending move. We were to wake up early on Monday morning. M. wanted to be in Guildford by eight a.m. to open the office, before driving me to the bungalow. We were ready to leave before seven o'clock and we switched on the television to see the first two men on the moon (Armstrong and Aldrin), eerily bouncing their way over its dusty surface.

Somehow, that historic event made our day seem all the more momentous and adventurous.

I shed no tears as we drove away from the house/cum/office. It had served its purpose. It had acted as a sort of home for two and a half years, but I had sunk no roots there.

There was, however, a problem with our brand new bungalow. There was no mains electricity available at the site of the bungalow and cable needed to be laid along the rough footpath access. The local military gentleman who owned this footpath, and who had shown no distress or even interest at our improving its condition, had put in a claim for compensation for its disturbance. But although it would have been reinstated to its present condition, the compensation offered by the Electricity Board was refused by him, and he stated that it was not just a matter of money! It was a matter of principle!

The previous week I had been to the head offices of the Electricity Board. Perhaps meeting me face to face, they would be persuaded to expedite the provision of our electricity supplies. As an added incentive, I took my son in his push-chair, but got so tangled up with their revolving doors on my first abortive trip there, that I opted for a less pathetic approach on my second visit.

However, although I received sympathetic treatment from the gentleman concerned with our case, my visit made little difference. In view of the refusal of our neighbour to grant permission to the Electricity Board to cross his piece of land, certain prescribed paths would have to be followed, and as you can imagine, those paths would wend their way through skeins of red tape before arriving at a satisfactory conclusion.

We arrived at the bungalow with the bulk of our furniture - our bed - on top of the van, and Michael immediately began work on the most important job of the day - the connecting of our gas-stove, an elderly model, with only three legs. The important thing about it was that it was able to be connected to a bottle of gas. There was no gas laid on, so the cooker was something of a survival kit. Even the iron was to be heated upon it. Old-fashioned or not, together with packets of candles, boxes of matches and torch batteries, our three-legged friend was our sole means of providing heat, hot water and light (as well as cooking facilities) for quite a long time to come.

With hindsight, we know there were things we could have done to make life a little easier. For example, we should have purchased a simple device which allows you to be connected to two bottles of gas and transfer from an empty one to a full one when necessary.

Without this facility, I lived constantly with the thrill - or fear - of running out of gas; and although we usually had spare bottles, I could neither lift them nor manoeuvre the spanner to connect them to the cooker.

It became a ritual to start the day, as we always had, by bathing. This involved heating three saucepans and a very large kettle on the cooker, and as soon as he had emptied his own water into the bath, M. would fill up the receptacles for our son or me. Sometimes I would bath our son first, and then add a second helping of cooked water for myself. The little extra depth this provided gave me a feeling of luxury, though sometimes it had cooled so much, it was only equivalent to the cold water I would have added anyway. I was rather envious of M, as his large frame displaced so much water that he was actually covered by it, whilst I, at a little over half his thirteen stone, could never achieve that and had to be satisfied with sitting in a fairly deep puddle...'

The Fruit of the Tree is available from Amazon, or from my website: http://freespace.virgin.net/jackie.luben