Sir Patrick Moore - Patrick Moore: The Autobiography

When my autobiography, Eighty Not Out , burst into print in 2003, I had no idea what to expect. If it attracted any comments at all I rather thought that there would be attacks from people who disagreed with me, notably the fox-hunters and the Politically Correct fanatics. Yet this didnt happem.

The first Press interview, with a middle-aged Times reporter (a Miss Penny Wark) was not very encouraging, she came down to see me, didnt get the answers she may well have wanted after her oft-repeated questions and departed looking furious (at least, I thought she looked furious, it may of course have been her natural expression). But subsequent Press reporters, notably from the tabloids, were uniformly friendly and courteous; so too were the radio and TV interviewers. I felt reassured. And most of the stack of letters I received were on my side; the few broadsides from the fox-hunters were always anonymous and usually obscene!

I havent really much to add; I have made a few amendments and put right some errors which slipped through my proof-reading, but that is all. If you read the book through, you are bound to find things with which you strongly disagree, but I always say what I genuinely think, so that at least everybody knows where they stand with me. If I were ten years younger and physically fit, I would now be gearing up for the next General Election and putting my name forward as a candidate on behalf of UKIP; as things are well, I will go on doing what I can as long as I can. Best wishes.

Patrick Moore

Selsey, December 2004

O n several occasions I have been asked to write an autobiography. I cant imagine why. I am not a teenage footballer, a pop star or a rock legend; I am an ancient astronomer. If the total sales of this book amount to fourteen copies, I will not be in the least surprised. However...

I am going to gloss over my first years very briefly. I was born on 4 March 1923, so far as I know. My birth, unlike Glendowers was not accompanied by any celestial manifestations. My father, Charles more properly Captain Charles Trachsel Caldwell-Moore, M.C. was essentially a soldier; he died in 1947. My mother, Gertrude ne White was trained as a singer; of her, more anon. Brothers and sisters had I none.

I grew up first in Bognor Regis and then in East Grinstead, both in Sussex. I was destined for Eton and Cambridge, but never made either, because a faulty heart laid me low for much of the time between the ages of six and sixteen, and there were long spells when I could do very little except read. However, when I was eight I did manage a full term at prep school. I enjoyed it, but not all of the activities were successful. My mother was a talented artist, but this was something which I did not inherit. We had art once a week, taken by a Mr Moore. On one occasion I was given some art prep, and was told to draw a towel hanging over a chair. I misheard, and thought that I had been told to draw a cow hanging over a chair. I did so. My mother kept that drawing for years; I wish I knew where it is now. Mr Moore then wrote, saying that I was commendably keen, but on the whole wouldnt it be better if during art lessons I went and played the piano in the music-room? My art career ended at that point.

Carpentry was no better. It was taken by a master whose name was (honestly) Mr Wood. The boys were asked what they wanted to make, and chose the usual items, such as letter racks and hatstands. I elected to make a boat, so I was given a chunk of wood and told to hollow out the hull with a hammer and chisel. By the end of the term all the other boys had finished their letter racks, but I had not even completed the hollowing-out process, and had put the chisel through the bottom so many times that the entire project was abandoned. Career number two lay in ruins.

As you will gather, manual dexterity was not my forte, as was evident from the outset. I do not actually qualify as being dyspraxic, but I have to admit that I am fairly close to the borderline; for one birthday I was given a tool set, and it took me exactly ten minutes to hammer my thumb. (Things are no better today. Quite recently I was trying to fix a tin-opener to the kitchen wall when someone told me, kindly, that I was putting it in upside-down. I was).

That one term at prep school proved to be a false dawn, and it became clear that Eton was out. I passed the usual school exams, with the help of tutors, and was geared for Cambridge when the war started. I manoeuvred my way into the forces I have to admit that with regard to my age (sixteen) and physique I was decidedly economical with the truth and that put paid to university. The other day I happened upon a photograph of a very young Patrick Moore in the uniform of an RAF officer. Looking at it now, I can understand why in those far-off days nobody ever called me anything but the Kid.

What else? Well, I did have a rather interesting war, but it was long ago, and a great deal of water has passed under the bridge since then. At the end of it I still had my Cambridge options, but it would have meant taking a Government grant, and this did not appeal to me. I prefer to stand on my own feet (size thirteen), so I meant to take up my place as soon as I could afford it. In the event, I never had time, because astronomy took over. I became hooked at the age of six, simply by reading a book, The Story of the Solar System by G.F. Chambers, published in 1898 at the exorbitant price of sixpence. I was lucky; a family friend proposed me for membership of the British Astronomical Association when I was eleven, and I was duly elected. (Exactly fifty years later, I became President). In 1952 I was invited to write a book, and I did so: Guide to the Moon . It was published a year later, and so this seems to be a rather good place to begin my narrative...

T here are two reasons for beginning these notes in 1953. One, as I have said, is because it was the year in which my first book came out. The second is that this was the year when I definitely abandoned all ideas about taking a conventional job. I was determined to go my own way.

At the end of the war I had no official qualifications apart from the ability to fly and navigate a turboprop plane and I had no financial backing at all. My father died in 1947. He and I were quite different people; had he been able to stay in the Army instead of being forced to retire because of a lungful of German gas swallowed in 1917, he would undoubtedly have ended up as a general, whereas nobody could be less military than I am. I was exceptionally close to my mother, who was with me until the day she died: 7 January 1981. One thing was certain: marriage was out. Please do not misunderstand me. I was a perfectly normal boy, I became a perfectly normal young man, and today I am a perfectly normal old man. But Lorna, the only girl for me, was no longer around, thanks to the activities of the late unlamented Herr Hitler; in fact she hadnt been around since 1943. Quite recently, someone asked me whether she was ever in my mind. I replied that after sixty years there were still rare occasions when I could go for a whole half-hour without thinking about her but not often. This explains why I am a reluctant bachelor, and also why I know that if I saw the entire German nation sinking into the sea, I could be relied upon to help push it down.

When Hitler, the Wops, the Nips and the Vichy Frogs had been disposed of, I had to take some personal decisions. Suddenly, instead of having a great deal of responsibility, I had none at all; a curtain had been dropped, and I was still in my early twenties. My Cambridge place was still there, but I could not overcome my distaste at applying for a Government grant; perhaps illogically, it went against the grain. I was brashly sure that I could write, and that eventually I would earn enough to pay my way through university. At least I could type and thereby hangs a tale.