I am old enough to remember the grainy, monochrome footage of the moon landing . As the US prepares to make a second visit, here’s a bit of whimsy…

Well, you know, in those days, CGI- that’s computer generated graphics- was barely invented but special effects were getting more sophisticated all the time so it didn’t take all that much imagination to put some kind of mock-up together. What’s that? Why?

To be honest, I thought we should have come clean about what happened but there was the budget to consider. There’d been a load of bucks spent. I guess Senate were kind of banking on the feel-good factor here. After all, it still wasn’t so long since the war ended, was it? Folks needed something to celebrate and the success of the mission was going to be recognised all over the world. It was set to define America as the most innovative, successful and powerful nation on the whole planet. ‘We couldn’t let the public down’ was what mission command said.

Yeah- I can tell you what it was like in there. It was Hell, buddy, that’s what; Hell from the start. To begin with, Neil, he wasn’t confident. Oh yeah, he was happy with the interviews, smiling and saying he was looking forward to it but to tell the truth, from the moment he entered the craft, he was a gibbering wreck, like a condemned man ascending a scaffold. And Buzz, well he tried everything. He started off telling Neil he’d be fine, reassuring him- we both did but then he lost patience with him.

It all went fine at first, the take-off and the ascent. Why did we take off at all? You got to understand. It’s a big deal, the take-off. It attracts a big crowd. There were thousands there, from all over- space fans, journalists, tourists. If you’re going to publicise an event like that you’re going to expect a lot of spectators and boy- there was a huge crowd!

We thought the guy would settle downonce we were underway. But soon as we’d gone up, he lost it. He was wrecked. Man, it was bad in there. Buzz gave him some pills. I don’t know what they were; some kind of calm-down thing. Where did Buzz get them? Just had them- maybe for his own use. I don’t know.

We were only going up and coming down so it was supposed to be a piece of cake. In the end, Neil swallowed so many pills he was out of it. We had to make a decision cos there was no way he was going to be able to go outside and pretend to be moonwalking. No way, so it was down to us- to Buzz and me. We didn’t have a coin to toss so we did ‘rock, paper, scissors’ best of three. I lost.

I got mentally prepared on the way back down. I’d seen the set enough times to know what to do. I knew the drill. I knew the lines. I couldn’t get into the helmet and harness until we’d been pulled from the ocean because it’s crazy small in the capsule. When they got us on the support vessel, Neil started coming round from the drugs and he was raving like a loonie so they subdued him with a jab. Back at base I got everything on. Man- that was heavy kit! If it had been for real, I’d have been weightless, but as it was, I had to wear a float harness so it looked like I was defying gravity.

Buzz got into the fake ship and they manhandled Neil in there so it would look authentic, while I got into position. I had to keep an eye on the director when I climbed out on to the dusty, white floor. You gotta hand it to the set guys. They did agreat job with it all. Even the lighting looked right. And after, they did something to make it all look a bit fuzzy- you know? Like it came from a long way. I did a few steps then I followed the script- the ‘one small step’ thing. Did I feel a fraud? Yeah. I felt like a dummy and in any case, Neil should have been doing the job!

Am I sorry? No. I was just doing what I was ordered to do, man; following instructions. But no, I wouldn’t do it again. I guess we fooled the whole world though. And it’s one Hell of a story…isn’t it?

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com