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Lettres d’Uzès #27: Over the moon

28/8/2012

3 Comments

 
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My client. copyright NASA
I got back to St Quentin to find the village en fête and in the middle of a heat wave, with the sign outside the pharmacy registering 42 degrees. Trop chaud to do anything except shut the shutters, read, watch old movies and check out what’s trending on Twitter.

Re-tweeted an inordinate number of times was the joke about Lance Armstrong giving up the battle to prove he was not taking drugs when he won his seven Tours de France. “Now that we know he took drugs” it ran, “I’m beginning to doubt that he ever walked on the moon.”

It wasn’t very funny and it was also singularly ill-timed, because Neil Armstrong died the following day, bringing back memories of that night in July 1969 and the moment when he represented mankind as he stepped onto the moon. I remember it particularly because, on my long vacation from university, I was working the night shift in a canning factory in Peterborough. Earlier in the month, production had come to a halt as we – a motley collection of students and occasional labourers – went on strike in support of our claim for a few extra pence on our hourly rate. That night, production came to a halt as a newly chastened manager brought in his black and white television from home so that we night hawks could see this historic moment.

I don’t know who wrote the line “One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind”. But I do know who wrote the speech which, with one or two alterations to suit the nature of the audience that day, he gave a number of times during the early 90s.

It was me.

This was the beginning of the era when corporate sales conferences would customarily end with a gala dinner, at which a celebrity of one sort or another would close proceedings with a half hour inspirational or comic address. Often, the choice of speaker would be from the world of sport or show business. It depended largely on the interests of the CEO. If he (and it was usually he) wanted to meet Tommy Docherty, then the event management company would arrange for Tommy Docherty in black tie to roll out his standard stories of Chelsea and Man United, and intersperse a few spurious analogies of sport and big business.

When Neil Armstrong was booked as the keynote speaker at a conference of insurance sales people, he didn’t have a standard speech. He was, as his obituaries have noted, a modest man who eschewed the life of celebrity which could so easily have been his. He was a reluctant hero, claiming that he was just doing his job. He had little to say. So I was brought in to draft something which he could make his own, and which would make the appropriate points about reaching for the sky, daring to succeed, hard work and attention to detail etc etc.

I did so without meeting him. I researched his life. I garnered quotes from newspaper interviews and NASA briefings. I cut and pasted them into an address which, I thought, was interesting from an historical point of view and inspirational for an audience of insurance people. I embellished a little here, exaggerated a great deal there, added some after-dinner jokes, and delivered a draft which would form a reasonable basis for a proper speech. And I heard nothing in response until, a week later, as part of the event management team, I stood at the back of the room, and heard Neil Armstrong read that first draft word for word from an autocue.

After a standing ovation, and a round of handshakes with top table, he was whisked away by his minders. But the company was happy. I got paid. And a friend told me a few weeks later that he had attended a similar event as a guest at which Neil Armstrong had told this great joke.

My joke. I’m very proud of that.

Today’s listening: Duquesne Whistle, the first track on the new Bob album, written with ex-Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Won’t risk copyright infringement by embedding the YouTube vid, but commend it to you.

3 Comments
Sean link
30/8/2012 02:56:50

That is brilliant.

Reply
myers
30/8/2012 06:44:02

Suuuuperb and I really am impressed!

He was a giant,kind man who walked where most people feared to tread. he reached the moon and became a star

Reply
Tim H-C
23/1/2013 17:06:46

a very belated comment (finally found a quiet 5 mins) prompted also by the BBC prog about him.......what a great human being, humble and kind....when he could easily have milked his status for ever. As the son of a fighter pilot, ionospheric researcher and Antarctic explorer(among other things) and being born 4 yrs before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, i grew up with a sense of awe and wonder about man`s exploration over the years. whether it was tales of darkest Africa, or the race to the poles....or, what must surely be our greatest achievement....to finally leave our planet. i`m blown away by your story, that you wrote a speech for him.....to have that connection to him must feel great....especially now he`s no longer with us. neither it would seem, is our sense of awe and curiousity as a species that led us to try to put a man on the moon.....i hate to agree with Clarkson, but taking Concorde out of service, and the downscaling and dismantling of the manned space programme feels like we`re now going backwards....we`re not exploring any more....who now will take that "one small step"

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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