TELSTAR

If there is one single thing form my childhood memories which still sends a chill down my spine it is Telstar,both the satellite and the hit record it inspired. It was the year of the Tokyo Olympics and thanks Telstar's technology we could for the first time watch the games in real time from the other side of the world.

I was seven years old and the world seemed to me to be a wonderful place when such magic could really happen. We were told that there was a time lapse of,I think it was eight minutes between the  actual event and its travelling time to our televisions, I was spell bound,and I have never forgotten the wonder that this event created.

The record which came out just made it even more exciting,the sound was as strange and wonderful as Telstar it's self and I played it until the record was worn out and my parents had taken to wearing earplugs.

Nothing since,not even the lunar landings caught my imagination quite so dramatically or stayed with me for so long

Today, while messing about on U Tube I stumbled across the original recording of Telstar by the Tornado,s and once again I felt the sudden up -rush of spirits which this piece of music always gives me.

It was of it's time of course but still it speaks of hope and a positive future

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As a race we humans are capable of amazing things we can reason,we have logic and our minds can encompass vast projects such as space flight and yet as humans we are flawed.

Also as a race we have an inbuilt self destruct mechanism ,triggered by greed first and a lust for power second. Any good historian should be able to explain how these traits have wrought the downfall of almost every empire, every society the world has known.

If then it is so obvious,why are we once again hurling ourselves in to self induced oblivion. The cause is the one trait which we do not share with other species and that is arrogance. We cannot envisage a world in which we do not dominate and this blinds us to the reality of how quickly our destruction could come about, and by our own hand.

Becoming self aware has left us oblivious to all else,we can no longer see ourselves as merely a part of this planet, we see ourselves as rulers,we believe that everything on Earth is there for us to take and that is wrong.

What happened after Telstar? Technology has moved forwards in leaps and bounds,but we did not. Human nature took over and smothered the bright flame of hope in a ridiculous arms race which achieved nothing.

We can be better than this,we must be better than this if we are to survive,and if we cannot; then perhaps we deserve not to exist at all.