Wednesday, December 06, 2006

I wanna be an Astronaut or an Accountant


Words from my mouth in 1981 in Mrs Burtons first registration lesson when I had to introduce myself to the rest of M1 form class.

The former I never really thought I would ever achieve but the latter was probably more likely. I hadn't planned on mentioning accountancy but a fellow pupil asked before me, Nicholas Johnson, had done so mentioning his Father was one so he wanted to follow in his footsteps and that made me quickly add it to my list.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do at 11 or even at 18 when I picked Air Traffic Control and Ordanance Survey. Well I suppose I kind of achieved one of them even if it isn't that fruitful.

Six years earlier a young Saltburn lad may have also announced his ambition to be an astronaut and this Thursday at 2:30 GMT he will be lifting off from the Kennedy Space Centre in the Discovery Space Shuttle on a 12 day mission to the International Space Station.


Nicholas Patrick

The Astronaut in question is Nicholas Patrick. He will be the fourth Brit to visit space but the first one born in Saltburn oddly enough. His CV shows that he studied Mechanical Engineering, the same subject I ended up taking. I dropped out thinking I didn't want to be an engineer. Neither did Nick apparently.

2 comments:

Glynn said...

A blog entry linking Middlesbrough and Space, effortlessly. You are to be congratulated.

Polarbear said...

thank you, my next one will link maastricht and aviation (and luton)