It took me a long time to find the right name for my latest crochet blanket. It's a smaller and simpler version of my Starburst Blanket and I wanted another star-related name but nothing seemed right. Then my daughter commented that the pattern squares looked like tiles.
Tiles ... tiled ... tilded stars ... Telstar! I got there in the end. In this photo Telstar is lying across Starburst so you can see how much simpler the new pattern is.
I think it looks rather nice on the floor in front of my fireplace.
Those Rainbow Gnomes started out as a Christmas pattern in 2022 but they've been up there ever since because I love them so much.
Anyway, enough about crochet. Once I thought of that name all sorts of memories from my childhood in the 1960s came flooding back. It was a decade dominated by all things Space related, or so it seems to me in retrospect at least.
Launched in 1962, Telstar was the first communications satellite in space. Reading about it, I was struck by the beauty of the thing.
But the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Telstar is actually the hit single by the Tornadoes which got to number one in the same year. I defy anyone of my age not to get all nostalgic when they hear this.
I remember the excitement of the Apollo Missions of the '60s and '70s too, from the tragedy of Apollo1 1 through to the first moon landing in 1969 and the ill-fated Apollo 13. My brother was allowed to stay up for the moon landing (which happened in the middle of our night) but I wasn't. I later met lots of women my age who didn't see it while their brothers did. Just saying.
Closer to home, there were lots of Space themed children's television series, most of them pretty awful. I don't think I noticed the clunky sets in Lost in Space but Zachary Smith was a great character. But yes, we did think the puppets in Joe 90 and Thunderbirds were odd.
Mum took my brother and I to see the film of Thunderbirds which was fun. For some reason the phrase "OK Alan", said in a stilted voice became something of a family saying afterwards. Here's the trailer for that film from 1966.
Then, of course, there was Dr Who which was first shown in 1963. My brother had a Dalek toy I remember but the thing I most liked about the series was the theme music.
Written by Ron Grainger and created by Delia Derbshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, this was the first electronic theme tune. We enjoyed Star Trek too and, as a teenager, I went to see the first (and at that time the only) Star Wars film in 1977. I quite liked it but didn't think it was anything special. Around the same time I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind but the only thing I can remember from it is this five note theme composed by John Williams. This was the start of the musical communication between Earth and the alien spaceship.
I've already mentioned my brother's toy Dalek but there were lots of other space themed toys in the 1960s although we didn't have many of them. The only other one I can think of was the Johnny Astro set which involved trying to land a balloon on the moon - probably more fun than it sounds. Here's my brother playing with his set which I should think was a birthday present. It's a poor quality photo, taken from an old slide.
And while I'm sharing fun photos of my brother from 60 years ago, here he is dressed up as an astronaut and ready to go to a birthday party.
One of my favourite toys from that time is one that I'm sure lots of people will remember - the Space Hopper. I loved mine and treated it as one of my dolls. When my Mum prepared me a surprise doll's tea party on my seventh birthday, Hoppity was there with all the others. Here I am sitting on Hoppity in the garden with my best friend Heather.
When I was planning this blog post I thought I must to include all the chocolate bars from the 1960s with Space themed names which I have always assumed were part of the general trend ... only they weren't. Mars, Milky Way and Galaxy were all produced by the Mars company which took its name, not from the planet but from the family who set up and ran the firm.
Milky Way bars were first made in 1923 and their name came from a popular malted milk drink and was nothing to do with the galaxy. I also discovered that the US and UK Milky Way bars are completely different. Ours has a light and airy texture while the US version is more like our Mars Bars.
Speaking of which ... the first Mars Bars were sold in the UK in 1932 and remain a combination of caramel and nougat. Whereas, in the US, the Mars Bar featured nuts and was replaced by the Snickers bar (still known to many of us here as the Marathon bar). It's all very confusing and nothing at all to do with Space.
And then there's Galaxy chocolate (one of my favourites) which was actually first sold in 1960 in England although I imagine the name was chosen to match the exisiting brands rather than for any other reason. When it was introduced in the US in the 1990s it was called Dove.
So, all those chocolate bars we enjoyed in the Space age had nothing to do with Space. Perhaps the coincidence of the names helped their sales though. They had good advertising slogans. Who can forget 'A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' or 'Milky Way - the sweet you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite'?
