Life Of A Legend

What are your proudest achievements?

People ask, what have I done? The answer is, not much. The only thing I've tried to do is to encourage other people to do things that I can't do myself. I hope I've done that with my programs and my books. I hope I've done that. Certainly many of the people I've helped, I hope, have long left me far behind. That's exactly how I planned it. It gives me great fun to go around and find in the world well-know amateur astronomers and well-known professionals, who began by hearing me or coming to see me, or reading a book of mine. If I've done anything at all, it's that.

Can you tell us about your latest book, 'Bang, A History Of The Universe'?

Yes. The title of that began with Brian May, who is a highly qualified astronomer with a Ph.D., he was in astronomy and doing research on radioactive dust, and then of course Queen came along and absolutely forgot about it. He had to give it up. Well now, I think I've had a hand in this, he's gone backwards, and he's completed his Ph.D. An honorable doctor now, because this is his actual one, his UCL. Well, a long time ago, I went down to Talkead Boys School to give a lecture, and an 11 year-old boy came and started talking to me. I thought, this is a very unusual 11 year-old. I think a wee bit acculturating, don't you? And that was clear. So he now got his Ph.D. doing star research at Oxford, and he's left me far behind. That was him. And I said to Brian May, we ought to combine on writing a book about the universe. He wrote back and finally said, all right. He and I and Chris released this book, Bang, which is going very well, I'd say. We've put our best work into it. We tried to tell the story of the universe from the big bang, 13.7 thousand millions years ago, where there wasn't time. And we tried to make it intangible. People seem to think we've succeeded. I think we have.

What was it like to meet Einstein?

I met Einstein only once. I was in the Air Force during my flight training in Canada. I had not been entirely honest about my age I must say, but I was there and I had a week leave in the middle and went on to New York and there was a conference there at the AIF. And you had to be invited and there was Einstein. That was great. And a little reception afterwards and again, I was invited and Einstein was there. We have a most fascinating chat. He was just a gentleman as you would expect him to be.Charming, worldly, courteous, a marvelous chap. He was an expert violinist and playing his violin there. Said I must warn you, do you play the violin. He said why it plays a swan. There was no comfort for this. There was that tenor there and I knew it. So I accompanied Einstein. All for a tape! There were no such things as tape in 1940.

What would you like to be remembered for?

I don't think I'll be remembered. There's no reason why I should be. But if I am, I'd like to be remembered as someone who tried to urge others to do things that they couldn't do themselves. I mean many other people I tried to help they left me far behind. And I know that. After all now, I belong to the twentieth century and we're now in the twenty first. But if I am going to be remembered at all, I'd like to be remembered as someone who did his best to try and bring others into the field.

How did you become 'The Gamesmaster'?

I may say straightaway, I was invited to do the Gamesmaster, to make quite a lot of money for cystic fibrosis. What it was about, I haven't the remotest idea, and I still don't know to this day. When people would ask me, "How do I get to level 4" I'd say "I'm sorry, that's a secret," and they'd go away that way. I'm totally mystified by it. It was great fun.

What would you liked to have been if you hadn't been an astronomer?

Well one thing I do regret rather, is that I've written quite a lot of music, and I've never had time to try to follow my musical composition. I have written quite a bit, see, almost the last thing I wrote, the Banda loran Parachute Brigade wanted a new march, and I wrote the new march out of the sky for them. They use it very often. And I wish I had time to follow it up, but honestly I didn't have the time to follow it up, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and I couldn't do more.