Remember when ... DREW ALLAN Neil Armstrong was over the moon in Langholm

SPACE has once again been in the news in recent days. At the weekend Richard Branson’s plans for commercial space tourism suffered a setback when Virgin Galactic had to abort a test flight of its rocket-powered space plane.

Scotland, of course, has its connections with the final frontier. Sutherland and Shetland are fighting it out for the right to be our spaceport and – here’s the biggie – we can claim Neil

Armstrong, first man on the Moon, as one of our own.

Armstrong was mightily proud of his Scots heritage. His forebears hailed from Langholm, in Dumfries and Galloway, and in 1972 – just three years after his giant leap for mankind – he was delighted to take up an invitation to become the first Freeman of the town.

On Friday, March 10 he had delivered the prestigious Mountbatten Lecture, entitled Communications in the Space Age, at the University of Edinburgh. On the following day he and wife Janet travelled down to the Muckle Toon, to give

Langholm its familiar name, for the ceremony, to be greeted by cheering crowds.

The Glasgow Herald’s Murray Ritchie reported: “‘Out of the world and into Langholm’ is a phrase familiar to travellers in the Scottish Borders, and was especially fitting for the greatest of them all – Neil Armstrong.” He records Armstrong as saying: “I feel very comfortable here among these hills and among these people. These are my kind of people.”

The freedom ceremony took place at the Old Parish Church, packed with 1500 people, many of them standing. Provost James

Grieve told Armstrong: “It is most appropriate that our first honorary burgess should be descended from the fringes of the Debateable Land, a man whose forebears were the virtual rulers of lower Eskdale and Liddesdale ... this is Armstrong country and has been for centuries.”

Armstrong replied: “It is said that the most difficult place to be recognised is in one’s own home town. I now consider this my home town.”

Neil Armstrong died in 2012. Being a former US Navy pilot, his ashes were buried at sea. But we know where his heart lay.