During the Cold War, as a teenager, I would stand outside on the front lawn at dusk as planes invisibly went over. Hearing that long roar from high-level airplanes passing over the city, I wondered whether it meant annihilation.

It would always finally fade back to birds.

Further back, at the age of three, I went to a night rocket launch at Woomera. I shouted, “Stay in the car!” in case it fell to earth and hit one of us.

I thought it was the end of the world.

I thought everything was the end of the world.