Moon landing feature

They could watch spellbound on clunky black and white television sets as fuzzy pictures beamed back from hundreds of thousands of miles away.

The voyage of Apollo 11 was a thrilling and, it should never be forgotten, very dangerous journey, in which mankind broke the bonds of Earth to plant a flag on a new world.

Generations whose imaginations had been fired by The Eagle and Dan Dare were privileged to live through a moment in which science fiction became science fact.

Now the new movie First Man tells the story of the epic voyage by Neil Armstrong and his crew, yet it is almost impossible to bring home just how exciting those times were in a modern world where the collective gaze has moved to our own planet and no longer looks to the stars.

Around four fifths of people today were not even alive when Armstrong became the first man on the Moon.

It was, in his words, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Yet that giant leap never happened. All those things that the Dan Dare generations might have expected to flow as a matter of course, such as Moon-based communities, and a further stretch to take a human all the way to Mars, were never to materialise.

Alongside the extensive television coverage to a mesmerised world, Salopians were able to follow the space race in a way few others could – thanks to the Shropshire Star.

Launched in 1964, it was a pioneer as it was one of very few British papers with the technology to publish in full colour and was able to bring readers some stunning images in the lead-up to the Moon mission.

On the night of the landing there was excitement from an unusual source. As the Apollo crew headed moonwards, one question exciting James Burke and other TV experts was: what's Luna 15 up to?

Luna 15 was an unmanned Russian space probe and there was speculation that it might land on the Moon, scoop up some moonrock (and score a PR victory), and take off again.

It was later learned that that was exactly the plan – it was a robotic Soviet scene-stealer. But by the time Luna 15 started to come in to land, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were already preparing to blast off from the lunar surface to start their journey home.

And in any event the probe crashed and was destroyed.

Unknown to the public at the time, there was high drama as Apollo's lunar module came in – it had overshot and was facing a boulder-strewn landscape. Ice-cool Armstrong took control manually and with only seconds of fuel left landed safely.

"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."

It was 9.17pm British summer time on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Which meant there was time for Shropshire children to be put to bed, to be woken again by their parents just before 4am on Monday, July 21, to witness Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the Moon.

The achievement of Apollo 11 was awe inspiring. In Shropshire, Salopians young and old were gripped.

Schoolboy Julian Jones, 14, of Astley Abbotts, was a keen astronomer who had his own six-inch reflector telescope.

"I think it's too incredible for words," said Julian, who had been following the mission on television for days and had had little sleep.

Twelve-year-old Norah Hughes, of Ryton, Dorrington, said: "If they did not do things like this, we would still be cavemen. I think it is a wonderful thing for everyone, and I would like to go there when they have a few houses."

Jasper Moon – and no prizes for guessing why he was asked for a quote – aged 89, of Penyfoel, Llanymynech, said: "America was quite right to go ahead with its lunar exploration whatever the cost. It shows a capitalist country can compete with a Communist country, and American has just done this."

The passing of time has not dimmed the measure of how great a moment it was.

Today you can ask anybody of a certain age what the greatest event of the 20th century was and they are likely to say the Man on the Moon.

Indeed, speaking at her Shrewsbury care home shortly before her 100th birthday earlier this year as she reflected on her long life, the late Lady Joan Dunn said: "If anybody asked me the most amazing thing during the course of my life, I would say the Man on the Moon."

Neil Armstrong became an American national hero in an instant, but was to live quietly and modestly, shying away from the limelight.

As might be expected of a former test pilot and, of course, astronaut, he had a massive interest in technical things, particularly clocks.

He was a client of Shropshire clock and furniture restoration expert Richard Higgins, and they became friends, and while in Shropshire in December 2010 Armstrong joined Mr Higgins and others for lunch at Osteria da Paolo Italian restaurant in Hills Lane, Shrewsbury.

Despite being at one moment in history the most famous man in the universe, hardly any of the other customers recognised him.

And that's probably just the way he liked it.