Some 500 million people are estimated to have watched on television as Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the moon's surface on July 20, 1969 as part of the Apollo 11 mission.

Now staff at the Market Place museum are hoping to hear from Warwickshire people with vivid memories of the landing and the space race for its forthcoming exhibition Once in a Blue Moon.

One of those glued to the screen at the time was the museum's front of house staff member Malcolm Blood, then aged 25.

He said: "It was unbelievable. We were more or less living every moment with them."

Mr Blood had kept a scrapbook from the first Soviet Sputnik space missions and his hero was Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.

He felt enormous admiration for the American Apollo crew, who went to the moon with no chance of rescue if anything went wrong.

The US crew of three had taken off on July 16, and the landing was safely completed only after a tense period in which the crew dealt with several alarms and computer problems, as well as having to avoid rocks near the landing site.

Mr Blood's scrapbook, which includes maps of the moon and details of the astronauts' food and spacesuits, is now kept as a historical artefact at the museum.

He added: "They were incredibly brave men and pioneers.

"They had to get it right, they only had one chance.

"It could have gone wrong and they could have been entombed on the moon.

"We were going through a period of time when everything was a first.

"I just wanted to catalogue it so I could look back on it."

Children around the country were allowed to stay up to watch the event on television and other Warwickshire people have also shared their memories.

St John's House Museum's assistant keeper of human history Nicola Sherhod said one woman holidaying in Scotland was invited into a cottage to watch the broadcast and another who was pregnant at the time had marvelled that there were men walking on the moon's surface.

Miss Sherhod said: "It is a significant event in world history. Although it was an international event it was something that Warwickshire people would have seen."

Visit Market Hall Museum or St John's Museum or your nearest library if you have personal memories of the landing you wish to contribute.