It is a little-known fact that when a wonder-struck world watched Neil Armstrong's first historic steps on the moon it had a Bradford man to thank for the amazing pictures.

Bradford-born Mike Dinn, pictured, was in charge of the Australian tracking station responsible for beaming the grainy images back from the lunar surface and catching the legendary words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

The antics of the crew at the Parkes tracking station, in New South Wales, have now been made into a hit comedy called The Dish starring Sam Neill as the station chief battling against the odds to broadcast the pictures.

And Mike actually gets a bit part in the movie.

"You can actually hear my voice in the film where they've used some old recordings from the time," he said.

But engineer Mike said the reality of bringing the magic of the Apollo 11 moon landings back home was a lot different to the big-screen version of the story.

Former St Bede's pupil Mike, 68, who was born in Little Horton, emigrated to Oz in 1960 after studying engineering at Bradford Technical College.

He said: "Growing up in Bradford I had no idea I would end up on the other side of the world helping to transmit pictures of the first man on the moon! Before I left I was working for English Electricity at Thornbury.

"I first went to Australia with a three-year contract and had every intention to come back to Bradford when it had finished. But when I got offered the job at the Canberra Space Tracking Station I decided to stay.

"But I still keep in touch with events in Bradford through the T&A's ThisIsBradford website.

"In 1969 I was running the tracking dish operation for the Apollo 11 mission and that's where all the pictures actually came from.

"It was a really exciting, inspiring, time and a huge moment in history but we were all very busy and preoccupied with all the technical aspects when it happened. It was a great time to be involved because you weren't distracted by budgets and resources like you are today."

When the Apollo 11 mission made history on July 20, 1969, Mike was deputy station controller at Honeysuckle Creek tracking station, about 200 miles away from Parkes, where the historic pictures were really broadcast from.

He said: "The film is about 60 per cent accurate. In reality it was much more professional and had a lot more staff involved - but it's an enjoyable film. I understand that they had to take a bit of artistic licence to make it into an entertaining film!

"But I'm a bit disappointed that when they read out the letter of congratulations from mission control at Houston at the end of the film that they don't give everyone at Honeysuckle Creek a mention!"