Sir Patrick Moore has left us

It is a most difficult thing to hear that one of your childhood heroes has gone.

But this lunchtime myself and many, many others I suspect, have had to come to terms with such a passing.

I'm British, I love science and I love space. I am a nerd. And Sir Patrick Moore was perhaps the catalyst for all of that and all the pleasure I have had from it all.

For 55 years, longer than I have been alive, he presented The Sky At Night, making it the longest running show with the same presenter in television history. His maps of the Lunar surface were used by both the USA and the Russians in the race to the moon. Author of dozens of books on astronomy and an accomplished xylophone player and with his monocle, he best represented the worldwide perception of the British as being eccentric.

But most of all, he made us look up and be bewitched by what we saw.

We thank you Sir Patrick Moore.