Kate McWilliams 'One Small Step for Man'

"Prior to visiting Goodwood in January to give a talk to some of the GAC members, all I knew of Goodwood was the Revival, the Festival of Speed and that if we were lucky we would get “Direct GWC” by London Control on our arrival into Gatwick.

"Now, I don’t like to do things by half, so when I was asked to be Ambassador for the Goodwood Aero Club I really wanted to get involved and understand what Goodwood was all about. What I quickly established was that Goodwood is a very welcoming community with a very good social calendar.

"I looked through the GAC calendar of events and compared it to my flying roster to see what I could attend but I also had a look at the Kennels calendar and was intrigued at the variety of events going on there.

"The first one that I was able to attend was the 'One Small Step for Man' event on 16th July, 50 years to the day that Apollo 11 embarked on its historic journey to the Moon. Dr John Mason came along to The Kennels to share his knowledge and enthusiasm about the Apollo 11 mission and the three men who embarked upon it. Not only that, but he also managed to arrange a perfectly timed partial lunar eclipse to coincide with the anniversary.

"I called up The Kennels with the question 'Would it be strange if I came along on me own?'

'Of course not' they said, so off I went.

"The evening started with a lovely drinks reception on the terrace of the Kennels before Dr Mason began his talk. Dr Mason told the inspiring story of the three men who, at 9:32am on 16th July 1969, came to be sitting in a Saturn V rocket and the thousands of people that helped to get them there. I’ve never seen such an engaged audience as Dr Mason told us of their journey with such passion. There was of course time for Q&A before a delicious three-course dinner was served by the fabulous Kennels staff. At dinner I shared a table with some other solo attendees and we shared some really interesting discussions but as the sun started to set something outside distracted us – the moon. The sky stayed clear and the moon was full, but partially obscured by the beginning on the eclipse. Dr Mason had set out some telescopes so we were able to get an amazing view of the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and of course, the 'star' of the show - the moon itself. What an evening, I can’t recommend the events at the Kennels highly enough. I hope to see some GAC members at the next Kennels event soon."