I dropped one......age 6 and a bit.

The images on the family black and white TV of the Moon landing in 1969 were very poor.

Well, that was how I remembered them at the age of well, 6 years and just 3 days old.

That could have been down to a poor vertical hold and tone on the ancient Decca TV or whatever it was but I could make nothing out apart from a few hazy shapes and a very black background. The static fuzz could, I suppose, have been distant stars. 

I found that disappointing because for all of my excitement and attention about the whole Apollo Mission I had no chance of spotting the distinctive Clangers who I firmly believed, at that impressionable age, resided on that near neighbour to Planet Earth.

That misconception, as I have come to realise only now in my adulthood, showed the clever timing and styling of The Clangers stop motion animation by its co-creators Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.

They had launched the programme (Postgate and Firmin I mean....not NASA) just a year earlier expressly to coincide with the great public interest in the Race in Space. Those creatures (The Clangers and not the Astronauts) were entirely responsible for my imaginary perception of space aliens being well before the era of little green men, lanky limbed silvery jump suited bug eyed types and all manner of weird and wonderful beings in between.

I was not afraid of the prospect of having a close encounter with or being abducted by The Clangers because, lets face it, they were just so cuddly and not at all scary.

They were, for starters, pink.

Their skin was obviously in a knitted pattern and their facial and body shapes were a bit mouse-like from their big round ears to their black eyes and long pointy noses.

As for their space suits, well, they made Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins (The crew of Apollo 11) look positively overdressed for the occasion. The body armour was obviously fuzzy felt based with hand sewn embroidery features but ideal for what was quite a hostile environment on their little but moon like home.

The strangest feature was their four fingers but aged 6 years and 3 days I just assumed that they did not need opposable thumbs in the absence of such things as duffel coats, shirt collars and trouser buttons.

Another clever ruse by the creators was the presentation of the language between the very sociable, family oriented and community based Clangers.

Although the shows were individually scripted in order to give authenticity in cadence and expression of words and phrases the sole communication method was in whistling, in short conversational rhythms.

Although resulting in a random and entirely incomprehensible high pitched tone I would challenge all of my generation who saw the original series to deny that they could follow and appreciate everything that was going on between the characters.

The animation process was painstakingly slow.

A team of 6 could expect to complete only a 6 to 9 second sequence for every day in the studio.

Even so, the stop motion technology was still pretty advanced , or at least until automation and computerisation could be introduced and then, ironically, better and more graphically proficient animation marked its demise.

So, you can visualise me in my pyjamas in front of the tiny TV screen squinting and making a nuisance in front of the rest of the family viewers in my quest to spot one or more Clangers.  Pyjamas because the landing was broadcast in the UK in the early hours of that summer day, 20th July.

I am sure that I was allowed to watch at that unearthly time, 03.56am although my parents were usually very strict on bedtimes appropriate to age.

It does seem possible that I went to bed the night before and was woken up to witness the historic event, after all it was during the school holidays.

As well as the pink, knitted aliens I was also watching out for dustbin lids and the Soup Dragon.

The first formed the opening to the crater houses and it is said that the sound of the ribbed metal on the crater rim, Clang, gave the name to the inhabitants.

As for the catering, well, it was done by a mythical type dragon who, in some sort of subservient role, fed the Clangers with what appeared to be their only form of sustenance.

I am a little bit embarrassed now by my 6 year old (and three day) self and that frantic search for fictional beings on what turns out to have been the wrong bit of rock in space, completely.