Patrick was very skilled in many fields: science, sport and music. He could speak faster than anyone else, and was the long serving presenter of the BBC show "The Sky at Night". However, in Australia we know him more through his writings on astronomy and space than from other media. And through all this, we think his practicalities, above all, are what inspired our generation.
One source has estimated that Patrick Moore has been associated with over 1,000 books in one capacity or another. He specialised in lunar observation and his first book was "Guide to the Moon" which was to be later updated, several times, under the title "Patrick Moore on the Moon". Our favourite was "The Boy's Book of Space" published in 1954, and which dealt with space travel as well as astronomy. The plates in the book included artistic impressions of a lunar lander, symbols in the Sahara desert that could be seen by Martians, and a tropical jungle on Venus. Moore was keen to convey the most recent thought on the subjects he covered and to debunk popular myths. Even his teenage space novels emphasized practical skills: welding to build spacecraft and morse code to communicate over the large distances involved in a trip to Mars.
Moore never felt the need to be politically correct, and we must admire him for this, against the incredible pressure we face from groups who feel we all should embrace the "ideals" that they continually push upon our culture.
Patrick Moore wrote his autobiography, which was first published in 2003, under the title "Eighty Not Out". It was reissued in 2005 called simply "The Autobiography".
Our upcoming generation of astronomers have few role models of the ilk of Patrick Moore to inspire them. They are poorly dealt by ones who are more concerned with demoting planets and the irrelevance of multiverses than with the practicalities of the subject. Fortunately, the written legacy of Moore can be accessed by all, serving as a reminder of the golden age of DIY.