As my parents and I were living in one room at the time, I can proudly boast of listening to them in my cot (they attracted a bigger audience than TV).

They still combine the punch of a story well-told and well-acted (although sometimes a little stereotyped to modern tastes), with a nostalgic period flavour.  The time is set in the 1960s, the future for the series, and relates how Britain (or rather, Britain and the Commonwealth as represented by Doc and Mitch) was able to embark on extraterrestrial manned exploration all by itself, first to the Moon, then to Mars.  And what they found there.....cue menacing music.....

The impact depends very much on the imagination of the listener - there are few sound effects (the BBC Radiophonic Workshop did not exist until 1958). There is an intriguing subtext of external threat, which one finds in much 1950s Western science fiction, which helps keep up the tension.  One can trace the debts to Verne, Wells, and Bradbury, but Chilton has used his sources well.  (He also joined the Royal Astronomical Society and read up on the subject for 6 months before he wrote Operation Luna.)  He is still very much alive (b. 1917) and I like to think of him studying the pictures sent back from the Moon and Mars and dreaming up new scenarios from the new data.

Journey into Space written By Charles Chilton

Series1:  Operation Luna

Series 2:  The Red Planet

Series 3: World in Peril

Price for all three together:  £64.18