"Earth calling Base, come in"

In the 1950’s it seemed like you could do anything; you might have to wait 20 odd years but if the moon was where you wanted to go then why not?

At some point I wanted to be an astronaut too, but the closest I got was in a homemade robot suit that I built from two cardboard boxes.

The main part was a gigantic Fairy Snow washing powder box, it must have originally offered a packaging home to a hundred individual soap packets destined for a supermarket’s shelves.

I cut a hole on each side for my arms and a square in the top for my head to protrude through, though this was concealed in a smaller cardboard box that was inverted and placed on top of the main unit and held in place with strips of elastic over the flaps.

I added a few dials and buttons that had no technical function and stuck some sticks into the main section to add a certain misconstrued realism, and then with a little help from any passing family member I would struggle inside and patrol our suburban garden.

We never suffered an alien invasion thereafter.