Re: Two Articles about What Brits Know (or Don't)...

In article <g1blq3pu0p9pu02ejja4pqde5gri8sutv2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
alanw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Alan Woodford) wrote:

> 
> I'm reasonably sure that Kemlo and the Zones of Silence was the first
> science fiction I ever read. My mum had picked up a second-hand 
> blue hardback copy that she tought I might find interesting - I must 
> have been about 7, and it lead to me getting my first library 
> tickets. The rest, as they say is history!
> 
> The book itself was crap though, even to a space-mad 7 year old in
> 1966.

Even as an 8-year-old, I knew enough biology to question whether a
child born in space could live in space without a space suit.  My first
thought was how could a mother give birth in space.

Reading one of the books as an adult what struck me was a section where
Kemlo and his friends set out from the space station on their space
scooters, stop, get off and walk around, as if they're a group of chums
out for a bike ride in the country.  This is all supposed to be taking
place somewhere in Earth orbit!