The Christmas 1969 was approaching and I was three years old. I wanted the Apollo 11 rocket when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969. I went off to listen to my favorite record again after announcing this.
There was a lot of craft furniture in our home. Our tables and chairs were made by my dad who taught woodwork at the school. Our Wales was still in the days of oak even though the space age was happening on television.
I was worried about my present a few weeks before Christmas. I asked if you knew that I could go inside a rocket.
I wanted an Apollo 11 of my own. I was wondering where I was going. I can't recall. My desire to be anastrologer was more than the average person. It could be at least more cruel. It was a special time. I had no father like that.
My Christmases in Wales were always great as a kid. I didn't sleep on Christmas Eve because I was so excited. Even when it wasn't possible, my parents always got me what I wanted.
I didn't think that rocket would come down the stairs on Christmas day. Kids don't say a lot. The idea was an ideal. It was in the open-plan lounge-cum-dining room that it stood almost as high as the ceiling, ready for liftoff, with steps waiting for me to ascend.
I was afraid of something. I didn't want to go up the steps through the open hatch in case it really did blast off in clouds of super-hot flame.
The fear was a tribute to the power of woodwork, for the mighty machine was all sawn, nailed together and painted by my father in a few busy December nights in his garage. The main difference between the Apollo rocket and the real one was that it was a wooden box with a black spike on top. Kids are easy to get along with. I took control of my vehicle after I was reassured that it wouldn't leave Earth.
I always felt like I could have what I wanted for Christmas because my parents were poor. The wooden spaceship was the beginning of a series of grand paternal creations, including the wooden crane I could sit in, the wooden car I could drive, and the medieval fort with painted plastic drainpipes for towers.
The wooden toys were not eccentric. They were giant representations of the love that went into it. I like to art with something handmade in it. It's possible to feel the love.
The wooden toys were rotted in the back garden. The remains of the rocket were a good place to hide after it fell apart.
My dad gave me more than just toys. Before I went to school, he taught me to read. The American books celebrated Sitting Bull and Geronimo as indigenous heroes who fought the Man. I was an expert on the tactics used to massacre the 7th Cavalry. My father was not happy about my lack of interest in sport. He found me fast asleep next to him after we had season tickets. When Britain joined the European Economic Community, he began to drive us all to Italy for summer holidays, which was how I came to know Rome and Florence as a kid.
I didn't thank him for the space rocket when he died of cancer a few years ago. It was too much to say. I tried to put some of the drug in his mouth. That gift is not replaceable. There is magic in the universe when you have a spaceship for Christmas.
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