Seeing Stars

This is ace ( CLICK HERE). It shows you (or reminds you) how to spot constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate North using Polaris. It's the best guide to teach people how to read the night sky that I have ever seen.

I am a big fan of star-spotting and spent ages when I was younger learning as many constellations as possible: in Norfolk, in the countryside where I grew up there is a lot of sky and minimal light pollution. I once took a man who had a job in the same kitchen I was working in to see a son et lumiere show at a Norfolk country church, as he was interested in local history. He seemed distracted and chain-smoked through the show, fidgeting on the straw bales we were sitting on. But after the show had finished, I found him gazing raptly heavenwards, as the crowds dispersed. Soon we were the only people left, and still he stood, and wouldn't move.

He had lived all his life in London, and he had never seen the night sky in all its beauty. He'd seen it in films, he said, 'but I thought they was exaggerating for effect'.

He was so overcome by the brilliance of the stars - it was one of those nights when you can see the Milky Way as a thick stripe across the sky - that he cried, silently. 'All my life', he told me, again and again over a pint later, 'that was there. And I never knew. I'm fifty seven years old, and I never knew.'

He died a year later. I found out afterwards, that he had been given the diagnosis of inoperable cancer the day before he saw the stars with me. It was the end of the season, and the kitchen closed that week, and the live-in workers went back home. After that summer working in Norfolk, the man went back to London to stay with his sister, and he never saw the stars in all their beauty again.

But he wanted ''Starry Starry Night'' played at his cremation.

It's a full moon tonight and the sky should be beautiful.
So I will be taking a moment to look for the stars.