I Could Have Been An Astronaut If It Wasn't For Malachy McAleer

Way back in the early 70's, Jonny Dekka wanted to be an Astronaut: the very first person from Dowlais Flats to walk on the moon. He pictured his mother showing off to the bingo crowd down the Legion on the weekend. All the other mothers peed off, cos their own children would be in prison, or drug dealers, or worst of all, traffic wardens. He wrote a six-step plan to get him to the moon, which he hid under the bed from his father. He wouldn't have understood. Fathers never did back in them days. However, what Dekka didn't count on, was failing so dramatically at the first hurdle when he found himself in a comprehensive school packed full of cane-happy teachers and nuns straight out of Lucifer's Institute for the Criminally Insane. This is the laugh out loud true...ish story of how a young boy's dream never came true. I Could Have Been An Astronaut... If It Wasn't For Malachy McAleer