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Jackie: On 20th July 1969 about 600 million people watched and listened to the moon landing. And one of those people is with me. Hi, Nigel.
Nigel: Hi
Jackie: Because for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about the moon landing. Nigel, can you remember the day?
Nigel: Oh yes, I can. I can remember the feelings of watching it on television. The amazement of seeing this thing happening millions of miles away and you could see it in your own sitting room. It was incredible.
Jackie: So you watched in on TV. Because nowadays when people think about watching TV, it's... it's fantastic definition, it's colour; it was very different back then.
Nigel: No, no, it was nothing like that. It was a small, black, smallish, I think, black and white television cos I don't think colour, certainly for the moon landing, existed. Um... and it was... it was totally unique. As the... as the television age emerged, I suppose in the fifties and sixties er... these... these huge television events um... became so important to everybody and this was one of them um... and, you know, you were there, you were watching it live, it wasn't recorded and filmed, it was just, quite , quite fascinating, it was... it was so well done for the time, obviously.
Jackie: Right, so you... you were aware that you were watching this most amazing event,then?
Nigel: Yeah, yeah, I mean you had the thing about the pictures er...in... on... in the rocket and the people at Houston, the control people, you know that whole thing about the beep that went between the conversations, when they er... when they talked to each other er... and what they were saying Houston, and then you had the commentaries, you had this amazing chap called James Burke, who was on the first British er... BBC space commentators. He was very enthusiastic, he wasn't too scientific, so it was exciting, it was very exciting.
Jackie: Yeah, very exciting right from the moment when the... the Apollo 11 got launched.
Nigel: Yeah
Jackie: I'm mean that whole countdown thing as well.
Nigel: Yes. It was captivating, it was captivating.
Jackie: But, Nigel, were you aware that there was a race involved as well?
Nigel: Not particularly. I mean obviously the whole JFK, John F Kennedy thing, I mean him saying he wanted to have a man on the moon...
Jackie: Before the Russians.
Nigel: ...before the Russians and before the end of the seventies er... sixties sorry um... but I wasn't particularly aware of it being a race. I mean the Americans dominated the whole space race. You know the Russians had put some astronauts up but it was the Americans who totally dominated it and it was just an amazing achievement really.
Jackie: It's interesting because um... Neil Armstrong became so famous and his phrase “a small step for man, a giant step for mankind” he never went up to space again, that was his... that was his last mission.
Nigel: Yes, yes, he was... he was um... he wasn't old but he was probably at the end of his sort of working career. He did it successfully um... and then he just sort of disappeared.
Jackie: I think one of the reasons was that he recognised that although he was actually the first person on the moon, behind the scenes there were thousands and thousands of people who put him there who also deserved the credit.
Nigel: Yes. Absolutely, I mean it was a huge team effort er... I think somebody said er.... when they were talking about Neil Armstrong, you know, he is a man who will always remain in history.
Jackie: A man who will always remain in history.
Nigel: Yeah
Jackie: Nigel, thank you very much.
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