Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore. 4 March 1923—9 December 2012

Early life

Patrick Moore was born on 4 March 1923 at Innamincka, 22 Cannon Lane, Pinner, Middlesex. His father, Captain Charles Trachsel Moore (1885–1947), was an accountant who had served on the Western Front in the First World War, winning a Military Cross for bravery at the Battle of Arras, twice being mentioned in despatches, and being invalided out after a gas attack, which thereafter impaired his health. Patrick's mother, Gertrude Lilian, née White (1886–1981), daughter of Julius White, a wealthy London solicitor, was an amateur opera singer who had trained in Italy under Vincenzo Sabatini, and a talented artist. Patrick was baptized Patrick Alfred Moore. At some point in adulthood he added Caldwell, initially as a middle name, later as part of a double-barrelled surname, and also began giving his father's name as ‘Capt. Charles Caldwell-Moore’. Caldwell was his paternal grandfather William's middle name, Trachsel his (German) paternal grandmother Celina's maiden name.

Moore was an only child and a solitary one, and was educated privately at the family homes in Bognor Regis, and then East Grinstead, owing to his frequent ill health. When he was six his mother, to whom he was especially attached, gave him a copy of G. F. Chambers’ The story of the Solar System (Chambers 1895), which first sparked his interest in astronomy. By the age of 11 he was the proud owner of a telescope, and had joined the British Astronomical Association, the British society for amateur astronomers, of which he was to remain a lifelong and active member. At the age of 13 he sent his first report to the Association, on the features of a lunar crater.

The war years

Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, Moore joined the East Grinstead Local Defence Volunteers (or Home Guard), under his father's command. On 31 December 1941 he enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve, and was accepted for training but sent home to await instructions. In July 1942 he was summoned to the Air Crew Receiving Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground. After some square-bashing he was sent to Heaton Park for basic training, but appears to have failed the tests for pilot training and was sent instead for navigator training at 33 Air Navigation School in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. On completing his training, he was commissioned as a pilot officer and sent back to No. 2 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit, at Millom, Cumberland, for navigator training on more advanced types of aircraft. From there he went to 20 Unit at Lossiemouth for operational training, being promoted to temporary flying officer. He was finally posted to 71 Base, Bomber Command, at Lindholme, on 3 May 1945, five days before the end of the war in Europe. Posted to the training branch after the war, he was regraded as a pilot officer but resigned his commission on 23 September 1947.

Much later, after the death of his mother, in his two autobiographies (53, 54)* and in interviews Moore gave increasingly fanciful accounts of his war service, which included claims that he had enlisted at the age of 16, having lied about his age; that he had piloted a Wellington bomber back from Germany after its pilot had been killed; and that he had operated as a spy, trained in unarmed combat and in planting or locating listening devices, behind enemy lines in, variously, Norway, Denmark, or Holland. Quite why he chose to embellish his war record to such a degree is unclear, but he was not unique in doing so.

The ‘professional’ amateur astronomer

After his father's death, Moore left the RAF. From 1948 he taught History and French at Holmewood House preparatory school, near Tunbridge Wells, where he was remembered as an enthusiastic teacher, but he left in 1952. From that time onwards he made a living as a freelance copyeditor, author, and broadcaster, though he briefly served as first director of the Armagh Planetarium, living in an elegant Georgian house nearby with his mother. He oversaw the planning and construction of the planetarium from 1965 to 1968, but left the day it was opened to the public. The reasons for his abrupt departure are not altogether clear, but he later cited the religious divisions in Northern Ireland, extending even into the scouting movement in which he was then active, as one reason for his departure.

Moore stated that he had written more than 100 books. This is entirely plausible from the list of titles given in the bibliography and recalling that, from 1962, he edited the Yearbook of astronomy, published annually. Indeed his biographer Martin Mobberley counted 300 books, including revised editions and the Yearbook. He scored an early success in 1953 with A guide to the Moon (1), which was followed by A guide to the planets (9) and A guide to the stars (11). Other representative titles included The picture history of astronomy (8), Astronomy quiz book (18), Armchair astronomy (30), Explorers of space (33), and The Guinness book of astronomy (25). His most commercially successful book was The atlas of the Universe (14), which went through several editions and was translated into many languages. This profligacy of book production—in addition to numerous newspaper and magazine articles—can be attributed to his extreme fluency in the use of the English language. He told one of us (M.S.L.) that he never revised any of his writings.

Most of his books were aimed at children and the general reader, but he developed a particular expertise on the Moon, and collaborated with the amateur astronomer Hugh Percy Wilkins on refining the latter's map of the lunar surface for re-publication in 1955, in The Moon: a complete description of the surface of the Moon (2); the 300-inch diameter map was used by NASA to shortlist possible Apollo landing sites. In 1995 he published the ‘Caldwell catalogue’ in the magazine Sky and Telescope, a list of 109 of the brightest deep-sky objects, such as star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies which had been left out of the famous ‘Messier catalogue’, compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771.

He also wrote several science fiction stories for children, including five novels set on Mars featuring an orphaned 16-year-old, Maurice Gray (3–7), and another six featuring the young astronaut Scott Saunders (20–24, 26). He published two humorous works under the name R. T. Fishall, Bureaucrats: how to annoy them (27) and The Twitmarsh file (32). The former contained suggestions such as demanding replies to letters that had not been sent, or rubbing candlewax on areas of forms which said ‘do not write here’. He was a great lover of pranks and spoofs.

The broadcaster

Moore's first television appearance was in December 1956, in a programme on Unidentified Flying Objects as part of the BBC's First Hand series, in which he represented the sceptical position. It was as the presenter of The Sky at Night on BBC Television, however, that he was to be best remembered. It was launched on 24 April 1957 as an extremely low-budget ‘around midnight’ monthly half-hour programme. Despite the very late billing, it was an enormous success, the opening Sibelius music being immutably imprinted in many of our minds. For many years it was filmed live, covering every conceivable topic in astronomy, as well as what was happening in the sky at the time each programme was broadcast. He always made it completely clear, however, that he was an amateur astronomer with no pretensions to professional expertise. He had the enviable ability of drawing the best out of his professional colleagues and making the topics perfectly accessible to the large non-expert audience. Those of us who appeared on the programme remember with affection the amateurish but compelling enthusiasm he brought out even in some of the trickiest aspects of astronomy. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of his role as anchor of the programme was his outstanding ability to speak at an extremely high speed with completely fluency and immaculate articulation—there was never a stumble. He told one of us that he always knew the end of the sentence when he started it.

Moore presented The Sky at Night for more than 55 years, missing only one episode through ill health in 2004. He presented the subsequent episodes from his home. His last episode was broadcast on 7 January 2013, a month after his death, making it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Moore was sometimes, but not always, joined by guests, among them most of the world's leading astronomers and astronauts, but it was his ebullient television persona and rapid-fire delivery which held the programme together and gave it verve and pace. The series drew large audiences of amateur astronomers, and was credited by many younger professional or amateur astronomers, and indeed scientists more generally, with first sparking their interest in science.

The public figure

Moore was one of the great ‘characters’ of British television. A large man, invariably dressed in an even larger suit, or his beloved RAF blazer, tie awry, hair dishevelled, eyebrows arching above twinkling eyes, the right one covered by a monocle in later years, hands waving in emphatic but unpredictable gestures, he fitted perfectly the public's image of an eccentric scientist. His enthusiasm for astronomy was infectious, and he had no rivals as the leading popularizer of the subject. He had a knack for explaining complex issues in simple language, though professional astronomers sometimes balked at his somewhat oversimplified descriptions. Far from pompous, he would frequently make jokes against himself; and, a master of the theatrical side of television, he would sometimes dress up in a spacesuit or ‘alien’ costume to make a point. He was a commentator for the BBC on many of the Apollo missions, including the first manned moon landing in 1969 (figure 1).

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Moore was much in demand for cameo appearances on other programmes, including quiz and game shows, and comedy programmes when, acting in part, it was not often clear that he realized he was the butt of many of the jokes. He received a huge amount of fan mail, responding to every letter with the same irrepressible energy. Personally generous to a fault, he frequently astounded correspondents by sending books, paying for expensive telescopes for people he had not even met, or composing pieces of music to mark special occasions. He also appeared unable to say no to any request to appear at a charity event or to speak to groups of schoolchildren about his passion for astronomy. One of us (M.S.L.) remembers fondly Moore's visit to the opening of an exhibition at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, when he would not even accept travel expenses. Instead, he would buy books out of his own pocket to give to young people.

On his return from Armagh, Moore purchased Farthings, at 39 West Street, Selsey, Sussex, chosen because the atmospheric conditions for astronomy seemed especially good at Selsey Bill. He lived there with his mother until her death, and latterly with a housekeeper and then helpers until his own death. He built a number of small observatories at the bottom of his garden, which housed various kinds of telescopes. The house itself was decorated with his mother's paintings of what she called ‘bogeys’, little friendly aliens, who also appeared on their annual Christmas cards, and in a short book, Mrs Moore in space (Moore 1974), to which her son contributed a foreword.

Moore was a generous host, loved a party, and was devoted to his friends, though he could be equally passionate in his enmities. He ‘adopted’ his four godsons, Ian Makins, Chris Doherty, and the brothers Lawrence and Matthew Clarke, as teenagers or young adults, when their parents, whom Moore had known, died. Each would later pay tribute to the depth of his care and compassion. He had a succession of cats, and one of his books, a paean to all the cats he had owned, was entitled Miaow! Cats really are nicer than people! (56).

Politics and personal life

Perhaps in keeping with his reputation for eccentricity Moore held political views which were to the far right of the British political spectrum. An opponent of metrication and a patron of the British Weights and Measures Association, in the late 1970s he was the chairman of the short-lived United Country Party, which campaigned against immigration, trade union power, and membership of the European Communities, which he invariably portrayed as a tool of German domination. He was a close friend of Norris McWhirter, chairman of the Freedom Association; in a newspaper interview he described McWhirter, only half in jest, as ‘rather left-wing actually. But then, as far as I'm concerned, Enoch Powell was Britain's most dangerous left-winger’ (Independent on Sunday, 5 September 1999). In the same interview he said that his aim was ‘to save the Britain that we've had for the last thousand years’. Later he was an outspoken patron and supporter of the UK Independence Party, though he sometimes embarrassed the party with his extremist views on such topics as race relations, homosexuality, and women's rights. By contrast, he was a firm advocate of animal rights, and an opponent of fox hunting.

After his mother's death, Moore began to claim in interviews and in his autobiographies that his hostility to Germany owed much to the fact that his ‘fiancée’, ‘Lorna’, a nurse from East Grinstead, had been killed in a German air raid in 1943: this ‘explains why I am a reluctant bachelor, and also why I know that if I saw the entire German nation sinking into the sea, I could be relied upon to help push it down’ (80 not out (53), p. 10). However, his biographer, Martin Mobberley, has not found any mention of a Lorna (or any fiancée) in his diaries from the period in which he kept them, and which are otherwise detailed, nor has it been possible to find an air raid victim matching his description of her. Moore's development of this story may also have owed something to his defensiveness about the fact that he never married, and a desire to assert his heterosexuality at a time when his close friendships with young men may have raised eyebrows.

Recognition

Moore received many honours in recognition of his role in popularizing astronomy, including honorary membership of the astronomical societies of Canada, New Zealand, and the USSR, and honorary doctorates from Hatfield Polytechnic, Trinity College, Dublin, and Lancaster, Birmingham, Leicester, Keele, Portsmouth, and Glamorgan universities. He was made an OBE in 1968 and a CBE in 1988. He was President of the British Astronomical Association in 1982–4. He was knighted in 2001, the same year in which he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society, a distinction of which he was especially proud. The citation reads as follows:

He was a keen chess player and amateur cricketer, playing for the Selsey Cricket Club into his seventies. An accomplished xylophone player and composer of xylophone music, he recorded several long-playing records including The Ever Ready Band plays music by Patrick Moore (1979) and The music of Patrick Moore (1986), and a CD featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Moore music (1999). For the 1981 Royal Variety Performance he performed a xylophone version of the Sex Pistols’ single ‘Anarchy in the UK’.

Although for most of his adult life in robust good health and full of energy, in later life he suffered from increasing heart problems and back pain which rendered him unable to operate his telescopes without difficulty, though he continued to present The Sky at Night. His impulsive generosity and the poor remuneration for presenting The Sky at Night led to financial problems, but the astrophysicist and former guitarist of the band Queen, Brian May, bought his home and leased it back to him at, literally, a peppercorn rent. Moore died at Farthings of sepsis and heart failure with his beloved cat Ptolemy and his ‘adopted’ godsons by his side on 9 December 2012. A celebration of his life was held at New Broadcasting House on 1 May 2013. After his death, his friend and fellow astronomer Martin Mobberley published two volumes of biography (Mobberley 2013, 2015), which provide illuminating details of his career and personality.

Honours and awards