Before I go further into my examination of the collection of books and resources that I have collected over the years, its important to note a starting point, before the journey gets underway.
Around 1969, as I watched the moon landing live on our black and white TV, I had begun to collect space books as a matter of course. My family would be primarily responsible for the early ones, but I eagerly pointed out choice volumes that I liked the look of, usually for christmas or birthday gifts.
The following year, with the moon landing out of the way, the Moon Rock went on worldwide tour and came to our local museum in Liverpool. My sisters, probably more curious than I at the time, took me into town and we queued up for about an hour to get into the museum and a brief look at what I saw at the time, as a piece of coal under a double glass dome. I was seriously underwhelmed, but went along with the hype and excitement of the occasion, gathering up all the free handouts of photocopied material and accepting a black and white photograph of the coal in the grip of its silver stand, as a souvenir.
When we got home, my elder sisters in fine home schooling tradition suggested I get a scrapbook and put the handouts and other bits in for 'safe keeping'. I wasn't much concerned with the reams of text material, which didn't have any interesting illustrations at all, just some drawings of 'tektites'. Needless to say, I got out the glue and plastic scissors and slapped everything into a cheap scrapbook, that was provided for me from the corner shop. Over the next few weeks, the Radio Times and any other newspaper I could find, were summarily chopped up and slapped into the book.
Visiting my grans house, we found other old newspapers from previous years and I cut out a couple of articles on early Mariner missions to Mars. A TV Times Xmas Special had a nice silver and red Apollo capsule being drawn by reindeer, so that was hacked out and put in, along with a nice moon map.
If it was moon or space related, it went in the scrapbook. Unfortunately, left to my own devices, I was a bit heavy handed with the glue and quite careless with the scissors, so the end result was a bit of a dogs breakfast.
My dad knew a good book when he saw one and ensured his three children were surrounded with sound educational materials. As a result, the girls and myself all had a series of Ladybird books. I was delighted when the nature dominated series expanded to include science and two gorgeously illustrated space volumes.
At some point I would probably have marched these with me to primary school, so it was essential to put my name in them. This dates them very accurately, as 'Exploring Space' marks the transition from the address where I was born, to the house we moved to when I was 8.
