NOW that we have all come down-to-earth after the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, it's time to reflect on just how far the human race has come.

The TV celebrations have been a truly unforgettable, emotional flashback for people of all ages - right across the globe.

Last weekend I sat with my mum - who was celebrating her 96th birthday - on the anniversary of the lunar landing.

She talked about the many milestones in her own life including the day World War Two broke out and the day it ended.

Mum remembered where she was when space visionary President John F. Kennedy steered the Cuban missile crisis - and avoided an all-out nuclear war.

From Churchill and Hitler to JFK and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, millions like my mother looked on as history was being made.

She recalls, too, where she was when John and Robert Kennedy were assassinated - six years apart.

I can recall 50 years ago, sitting with my parents and brothers transfixed by Apollo 11 on the tiny TV screen while a watching world had crater expectations.

Life would never be the same again.

Now we have just revisited the famous moon footage.

I was a man and boy again.

I re-listened to all the world leaders, scientists and politicians describe the unique achievement in the uplifting news reports.

Yet, it was a Canadian housewife who left the most impact when she simply said that seeing a man on the moon showed universal hope.

Hope for all nations to work together for the good of each other and peace on neighbouring planet earth.

War - in her eyes - could eventually be banished into a galactic black hole.

Now 50 years on we are worried that nuclear buttons are in arms reach of the unpredictable. Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

We live in a stressed out world where social media has over-powered us, food banks are common and an army of artificial intelligent robots are waiting to take our jobs.

It seems we are travelling backwards.

Oh how I wish I could be that innocent, 11 year- lad-again.

Watching the Brexit fiasco on TV my mother now smiles knowingly.

Why?

Because she watched Ted Heath sign us into the EU in 1972 and now she awaits the 77th PM check us out in October.

Mum has seen it all before ...

Whatever happened - she says with a sigh - to that giant leap for mankind?

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THE International Music Festival came and went and, thanks to the weather, it was reminiscent of a Scouse Glastonbury.

It was a huge success as an event and long may it continue.

Sadly, a railway signal problem on the Southport line ensured travel disruption.

Enter the dreaded (cue Hammer Horror music) bus replacement service.

I was caught up in the queueing chaos so much so that I boarded a bus at 9.29am.

Then I was asked to get off as my free pass wasn't valid ... for another 30 seconds.

Standing drenched in my anorak I recalled how Neil Armstrong was only half a minute away from aborting the moon landing.

For me, it was one small step off the bus - one giant leap for the dedicated jobsworth driving away.

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NEIL Armstrong didn't seek fame.

He didn't say much on his return but he was ultra courteous in a pre-selfie obsessed earth.

Sadly, some of our pop stars get fed up with celebrity status it when fan demands are tipping them over the edge.

Like Victoria 'Greta Garbo' Beckham, many hide behind sunglasses.

Moptop Ringo Starr simply refuses to sign autographs.

Now one-time busker turned multi-millionaire Ed Sheeran complains that life for him is like 'being a zoo animal.'

He can't eat in restaurants without being filmed.

Sometimes people don't even ask permission and stare.

Now that's bound to inspire another number one self analytical song.

For the man who wrote Photograph, fame is developing into a real Ed ache.

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PROCRASTINATION - that's the title of a film I am working on, inspired by Wirral Council's events team.

This column has long campaigned for a Wirral Film Office.

There seemed to be a ' clapperboard . . . action' in sight when a meeting was scheduled for this Thursday at Birkenhead Town Hall.

CUT!

It is the holiday season, apparently.

So it's been cancelled.

Author and screenwriter Marc Gee who was invited to the Hollywood sounding 'think tank' is not happy.

He tells the Inferno: "It's been frustrating as I've been trying to get the Wirral Film Office off the ground now for almost four years."

Happily, he will continue to push for a WFO - one that isn't an 'extra' in the Liverpool Film Office's organisation.

Time for Wirral to take a starring role in its own right.

There's far too much hanging around I the film industry.

Let's see some reel progress.

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And finally ...

I will be first in the queue in 2020 to see the musical version of the film It's A Wonderful Life - a dream ticket collaboration between Bill Kenwright and Paul McCartney.

I remember the original film for one very special reason.

My dad told me when he returned to Blighty after the war, the pilot of the aeroplane was a certain James Stewart, later the star of Frank Capra's 1946 fantasy.

Back to reality for now and we should settle for 'a decent life.'

Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the TUC, says our new PM must strive for a 'decent life' for working people; decent communities and decent local hospitals.

The UK's 77th Prime Minister must make giant leaps for every single one of us.

Ground control to Number 10 ... we have lift off.

Peter Grant