There was a time in the 1950s when I was allowed by certain misguided British writers to believe that space and rocketry would be achieved not by the Americans but by Poms with the help of Aussies and they would be launched from Woomera. Such fabulous dreaming would never come again. Blast off at Woomera by Hugh Walters, written a hundred years after Jules Verne’s effort, was far further from the truth that now lay only ten years ahead. The British launch the moon landing mission on a Blue Streak from Woomera, to investigate the possibility of life there, but because a man would be too large to fit in the capsule, a young lad of my own age is chosen to be the astronaut. This was about as perfect as the world ever got to be.
    Then there was Tas and the Postal Rocket, by someone called EC Eliott (too many t’s and far too little ability to be related to TS), of how the mail would be delivered around the world by such rockets flown by an Aussie kid. Like me. My life was always going on the wrong track after that.