Buzz’s giant leap for God
QUESTION Did Buzz Aldrin secretly take Holy Communion on the Moon?
YES, Buzz Aldrin took Holy Communion on the lunar module after it had landed, but several hours before Neil Armstrong made history as the first man to walk on the Moon: ‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.’
Aldrin had brought the consecrated bread and wine from Webster Presbyterian church near Houston, where he was an elder. He had received permission to administer it to himself.
In his book Magnificent Desolation, Aldrin wrote: ‘So, during those first hours on the Moon, before the planned eating and rest periods, I reached into my personal preference kit and pulled out the communion elements along with a threeby-five card on which I had written the words of Jesus: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.”
‘I poured a thimbleful of wine from a sealed plastic container into a small chalice and waited for the wine to settle down as it swirled in the one-sixth Earth gravity of the Moon.
‘ My comments to the world were inclusive: “I would like to request a few moments of silence . . . and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.”
‘I silently read the Bible passage as I partook of the wafer and wine, and offered a private prayer for the task at hand and the opportunity I had been given.’
The communion service on the Moon wasn’t made public until after the mission. Aldrin had planned to share the event with the world over the radio. However, Nasa was embroiled in a lawsuit filed by a leading atheist, so Aldrin was asked to keep it secret.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of American Atheists, wanted a ban on astronauts practising religion on Earth, in space or ‘around and about the Moon’, believing it violated the constitutional separation between church and state. William Jacks, King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
QUESTION Chelmsford City’s Scott Fenwick recently scored consecutive hattricks with penalties in normal time. Is this football feat unique?
SCOTT Fenwick’s feat of successive penalty kick hat-tricks for Chelmsford came five days apart last month in National League games against Whitehawk and East Thurrock United.
Other players have scored a hat-trick of penalties. Billy Walker of Aston Villa was the first, doing so in a Division One game against Bradford City in 1921.
George Milburn bagged a treble from the spot, playing for Chesterfield against Sheffield Wednesday in Division Two in 1947.
Alan Slough scored three penalties for Peterborough against Chester in Division Three in 1978.
Jan Molby fired home three spot-kicks for Liverpool in a home League Cup replay against Coventry City in 1986.
Brazilian Ronaldo struck a penalty kick treble against Argentina in a World Cup qualifier in 2004, and Josh Wright scored three penalties against Scunthorpe United in a League One game in 2017.
Tony Matthews, football statistician, Almeria, Spain.
QUESTION What is the bird on the RAF badge? I have seen it referred to as an eagle and an albatross.
ACCORDING to the College Of Arms, which authorises military badges and crests, the bird is an ‘eagle volant and affronté head lowered and to the sinister’. In plain English, that is an eagle with its wings spread for flight, viewed from the front, looking downward and to the left.
Despite this official description, since the badge came into use in August 1918, there has been debate whether it is an eagle or an albatross.
I remember as an RAF apprentice in the Sixties referring to the bird as an albatross because it does appear to have more in common with that species.
To remove confusion, the Air Ministry issued Order No A.666/49 on September 15, 1949, stating the bird was an eagle.
Officers’ cap badges (below) contain the eagle symbol. Other ranks wear a cloth eagle badge on the upper sleeve of each arm of their No 1 Home Dress uniform: one on the right arm facing forward and one on the left facing backwards ‘to watch your 6 o’clock’, which means to watch your back. Sergeant and flight sergeant aircrew wear a gilt metal eagle on each arm above their stripes.
In heraldry, the naming of animals is confusing. The lions on the England football badge are called leopards because the two animals were considered to be the same.
The RAF badge design, thought to be by tailors Gieves & Hawkes of Savile Row, may have been intended as an albatross, but as this creature doesn’t appear in the list of birds depicted in heraldry, it was named an eagle by the College Of Arms.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION Was Johnny Mercer the most prolific songwriter of all time?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, with 3,000 compositions, Irving Berlin may have written the most songs in popular music, but Methodist Charles Wesley (1707-88) wrote more than 6,000 hymns.
This is exceeded by American Fanny Crosby (1820-1915), who wrote more than 8,000 hymns, including Blessed Assurance and To God Be The Glory. Neither wrote tunes, just lyrics.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby.