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The day the Cosmonaut came to Manchester

By Gurbir Dated: April 28, 2023 Leave a Comment

This piece was first published in Manchester Histories blog on 12 April 2023


Gagarin and British PM McMillan
Yuri Gagarin with the Prime Minister for the second time on 13th July 1961 (Courtesy RIA Novosti)

On Wednesday, 12th April 1961, a bright and sunny spring morning, an air force pilot of the USSR launched into space using a modified intercontinental ballistic missile. On his first trip outside the USSR,  Yuri Gagarin, aged 27 went -around the world in just 90 minutes. He broke the world altitude and speed records. He was the first to experience the realm and sensation of being in space. Exactly three months later, he came to Manchester.

He arrived at Ringway airport at around 10am on Wednesday, 12th July and travelled first to the Headquarters of his hosts, the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers (AUFW) in Old Trafford. It was a sunny day but peppered with occasional sharp showers typical in July. Thousands lined his route from Ringway to Old Trafford.  Travelling in an open-top Bently, he received a true Mancunian welcome. He was soaked. In the small union HQ, he was made an honorary member of the AUFW and President Fred Hollingsworth presented him with a medal engraved with the words “Together, moulding a better future”. 

His second stop was Metropolitan Vickers in Trafford Park, a unique place in Machester’s history of the industrial revolution. By now, the rain had stopped but puddles hinted at the recent downpour. Stanely Nelson recalled shaking Gagarin’s hand near the foundry. He recalled the working conditions most foundry workers endured saying, “it was like a vision of hell. Smoke, fire and tiny thin men silhouetted against the foundry fire. No one was fat; they were all thin like Lowry’s match stick men”. Of all his time in Britain, it was this time surrounded by working men and women amongst the dirt and grime of a working foundry that Gagarin would later say he felt most at home.

He arrived at Manchester Town Hall for a formal civic reception hosted by the Lord Mayor. Albert Square and all the surrounding office windows and doorways were crammed with people waiting to see the only man with the experience of Earth orbit. The dignitaries who got to shake his hand included Bernard Lovell from Jodrell Bank and the mathematician Kathleen Ollerenshaw. At the Town Hall, Gagarin, speaking in Russian, expressed his wishes for future space missions saying, ”I would like naturally like to fly to the Moon then perhaps to Mars and Venus and even further if my abilities make it possible”. By 16:30, he was at Ringway on his flight back to London, where he had arrived the day before and would stay until his return flight to Moscow on Saturday, 15th July. 

His spaceflight was packed with risk. He had left his wife a letter saying that should he not return, a real possibility, she should not remain alone. He experienced problems at launch and another during re-entry. The service module separation did not go to plan. The mission and his life came close to a catastrophic end. Ejecting from his spacecraft and landing separately by parachute, he returned to Earth as a real-life superhero. It was a supreme technological triumph, fulfilling humanity’s age-old dream of leaving Earth. It was achieved by a nation championing the virtues of communism in the midst of the Cold War. This was his first visit to the heart of the democratic West to demonstrate the prowess of the communist way of life.

To avoid highlighting the USA’s failure (its ally) to “be the first”, the UK government could not offer Gagarin a formal invitation. The remarkable response on his first day in London on 11th July, the public turned out in their thousands lining the streets in London and inundating Earls Court, the venue of the Soviet Trade Fair. Before the day was out, he had received an invitation from the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan and the Queen. His initial two-or-three-day UK visit was extended to five.

Following the global coverage of his flight in April, AUFW President Fred Hollingsworth discovered that Gagarin had trained as a Foundry Worker. It was the invitation the AUFW made in May of 1961 that brought Gagarin to Manchester.  Gagarin met the Prime Minister at the Admiralty and the Queen in Buckingham Palace, along with other visits to the Air Ministry, Mansion House and the Royal Society at Burlington House. In April 1962, the first anniversary of his flight, Gagarin sent a message to the people of Manchester saying, “And the firm handshakes of my fellow workers in the moulding shop were dearer to me than many awards”. For the many who saw or met Gagarin recalled his charm, good looks and his persistent smile.

Gagarin’s visit coincided with the heightened risk of another world war. The Bay of Pigs invasion, the end of the ban on nuclear weapons testing, the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was probably aware of the rising geopolitical tensions more than most. While in Manchester and London, Gagarin repeated his message of peace. Despite his extraordinary achievement, the people of Manchester saw an ordinary man with humble roots. For most, he was probably the only individual from the USSR they would ever meet.

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Pam Reid speaks on BBC Radio Merseyside about her father’s Memoir – My personal History of the British Interplanetary Society

By Gurbir Dated: July 12, 2022 Leave a Comment

Founded by Phil Cleator on Friday 13 October 1933 , the British Interplanetary Society exists to this day. BIS members include Arthur C Clarke, Carl Sagan, George Bernard Shaw, and Robert Heinlein. In 1933 Leslie Johnson was 19 and Clarke, aged 16, joined in 1934.

Leslie Johnson – My Personal History of The British Interplanetary Society 1933 – 1937 Liverpool

The initial aims of the BIS were to convince the public that space travel really was possible and help develop the technology to make it happen. It was an ambitious goal, futuristic, perhaps even reckless. A tough challenge when most people would not have seen an aeroplane up close, let alone ridden in one. Speke airport, now Liverpool John Lennon, was opened in July 1933. Movies were just turning into talkies, the BBC was founded in 1922 large populations geographically separated could share the same experience without having to be in the same place at the same time. Something that was possible for the first time in human history.

Today we are familiar with terms such as satellites, rockets, spacecraft and astronauts but in the 1930s they did not exist. Very few could visualise and understand these concepts and let alone the IDEA of space and space travel.

Like many other leading economies, Britain has a flourishing space programme today. I would suggest it started in Liverpool almost 90 years ago. Yes, despite 13th October 1933 being a Friday, the BIS is still flourishing today as the oldest space advocacy group in the world.

Leslie Johnson’s daughter Pam Reid and I spoke with Tony Snell at BBC Radio Merseyside. Listen below.

More about the book and how to get a copy direct or via Amazon.

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New Book – Leslie Johnson’s memoir. My Personal History of The British Interplanetary Society – Liverpool 1933 to 1937

By Gurbir Dated: May 20, 2022 Leave a Comment

My Personal History of 
The British Interplanetary Society 
1933 – 1937 Liverpool

Leslie Johnson wrote this manuscript between 1974 and 1979. It records the BIS story during the Liverpool years. It includes his reflections on their collective 1930’s dream realised in 1969 – the landing on the Moon of Apollo 11. This book (paperback and ebook) includes a foreword from his daughter Pam Reid, an introduction and an epilogue from me. An excerpt from my epilogue is below and “look inside” images of the book, at the bottom.

Most of the early BIS members were writers. Post-war members included Carl Sagan, Eric Burgess, Olaf Stapledon, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Heinlein and Patrick Moore. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Willy Ley and Isaac Asimov were considered “Astrofuturists”.⁠ They were all scientifically literate, and scientific principles guided their writings. Many of the visions they imagined then underpin our 21st-century society today. For example, the focus of Clarke’s celebrated 1945 paper, ‘Extraterrestrial Relays’, is now deployed in communication satellites that provide communication services anytime, anywhere between anyone on Earth. In 1971, Clarke was invited by the US State Department for the signing of the 80-nation INTELSAT (International Telecommunication Satellite Organisation) agreement. He concluded his speech by saying, “you have just signed far more than just another intergovernmental agreement. You have just signed a first draft of the Articles of Federation of the United States of Earth”.⁠ By chance, in 1975, when he was living in Sri Lanka, Clarke was one of the first to have a private satellite link at home.⁠

In his 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke imagined a human society living in colonies amongst the solar system’s planets. Rather than a World State, he imagined a United-Nations-like body but for all the colonies of the Solar System. He called it United Planets and based its headquarters on the Moon. Johnson, Cleator, Clarke and all their contemporary writers were innately optimistic and shared principles of Humanism. In October 1939, Cleator described war as the “supreme and ultimate imbecility of the human species”.⁠ Rather than undermining their pre-war naive desire for a utopian future for humanity, their first-hand experiences of war vindicated their belief in a peaceful future for a united human race empowered by spaceflight.
The interplanetary community wrote about a future in which their hopes and wishes of the 1930s would be an everyday reality. A utopian vision where space technology could deliver education, fresh food, medical needs, social interactions and intellectual fulfilment. Much of the imagined technology has arrived, but these benefits are not yet equally distributed to all the people on the planet. That technology allows more people to live longer, healthier lives for the first time in human history. Still, poverty, discrimination and gross inequality persist within and between nations.⁠

An unassuming young man from Liverpool, born in the year the First World War started, Leslie Johnson not only lived through a remarkable period in history but also made a personal contribution to it. As a teenager, he established the Universal Science Circle. He does not write about the thought processes that led him to create it. He did not explicitly express his aspirations for a peaceful world united by a single international language powered by modern technology. But all his contributions convey that vision. It is a vision far from being realised, but incremental progress towards it continues to be made. 

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Public Talk – Rocket Societies in Liverpool and Manchester in the 1930s

By Gurbir Dated: March 10, 2022 Leave a Comment

Manchester and Liverpool share a unique history in the development of rocket technology. The desire for spaceflight was promoted by the British Interplanetary Society, founded in Liverpool in 1933 and the Manchester Interplanetary Society in 1936.

They were not unique. Similar societies existed in Germany, Austria, the USA and the USA. There was even a one-man effort in 1934 in India.

In a public talk on Thursday evening 24th March, I will talk about the rise of these societies, the individuals who established them, the impact of World War Two on the development of rocketry after that led to the emergence of the Space Age – Sputnik in 1957 and first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin in 1961.

Some of the people who I will speak about are Phil Cleator and Leslie Johnson (founders of the British Interplanetary Society in Liverpool) Eric Burgess (founder of the Manchester Interplanetary Society), Willy Ley (a key player in German rocket society). As well as some early BIS members including Patrick Moore, Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan.

The event is organised by the Keighley Astronomical Society and take place in Keighley, Yorkshire starting at 7pm on Thursday 24th March 2022.

BIS HQ in London
MIS Publication – The Astronaut 1937
MIS Member
Stanley Davis
Members of the Manchester Interplanetary Society
Early meeting of the BIS
Plaque unveiled by Tony Lloyde MP
14 May 2012
Philip Turner
his farther Harry Turner was a member of the MIS
From L to R – Tony Cross, Tony Llyode MP, Frank O’Rourke and Alistair Scott
Pioneer Plaque
Inspired by Eric Burgess

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