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Comment by fiftyacorn | Hacker News Reader

Amazing it was only 60 years ago.

My favourite Gagarin story was when he visited Manchester on a rainy day and they wanted to replace the open top car for a car with a roof. Gagarin said no that if the people waited in the rain then the least he could do was sit in an open top car

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My grandparents met him when he toured the Metrovick [1] site, grandfather was a senior engineer there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers

Most amazing he also came to Cyprus and I was a kid at the time. We all went to see him in his car parade. Posters with his picture were left pasted on walls for many years. Video here https://www.britishpathe.com/video/gagarin-in-cyprus

> he visited Manchester on a rainy day

Are there any other kinds of days there?

Can confirm there is one day of sun a year

source: spent three years at uni there

A whole day of sun? That’s not the Manchester I remember.

Yes, it's the one day you are caugh inside doing important work.

It is sunny right now.

Live from Manchester, it's sunshine here today and same for the rest of the week! :)

It's tricky because the sunshine is grey.

Only rains in Manchester when Londoners come to visit. Got to keep up appearances.

Old joke:

Q: Are there any other kinds of days there? A: Don't know. I haven't been there long enough Q: How long is that A: All my life.

I know a tautology when I see one.

It is an amazing story. Stories like this break barriers of nations, languages and status and make humans out of these otherwise exalted individuals.

There was no barrier between USSR and Britain nations, the barrier was between USSR government and democratic world.

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