Chicken dinners and fresh paint

It's the minutiae of such world events that often comes to mind, and lends credibility to the theories that abound about the individuals and groups involved. I remember so much about that evening at home when the news broke about the JFK assassination, little of it relating to the cavalcade of cars and the shooting. Now, I find the story fascinating and watch avidly as the different theories and first hand accounts are reconstructed. A very interesting blog.

I think I was sitting in our dining room doing my homework with the radio on when the news came through.
Other memories of that period (my "youth") include Churchill's death which I associated with hearing from my Mum that our dear little spaniel had had to be put to sleep. Guess which one I cried over.

Life is full of minutiae - sadly there's not enough time to take it all in. I love to know all the ins and outs, whys and wherefores, ages and names, and have often been told I am just nosey. That's as may be, but for me, it sets the scene for the Bigger Picture.
I can remember just where I was and what I was doing when news of JFK's murder was broadcast. It was a Friday, I was home from boarding school and eating my tea before going to a choir practice, so it must have been around 6pm but, sadly, I can't remember what I was eating

I don't remember Kennedy being assasinated [not sure where on the planet I was at the time]; diitto Cuban crisis [good job as I would have been a wreck]. My first memory of a disaster was Aberfan which, young as I was shocked me to the core. Maybe, being a child I related to it more? And hearing that they were using missiles during the Falklands War [the very word missile made me thing 'nuclear' and I recall lying in bed shaking all night]. Marc Bolan dying in a car crash also sticks in my mind [I was doing season work at Tintagel at the time]. And 9/11; stood in the living room with my son and his friend staring at the television thinking that what I was seeing couldn't possibly be real. Then hearing of the London bombings when I was trying on shoes in a shop [it was on the radio] and saying to the assistant that I had to leave as I had no stomach for buying clothes. At first I'd thought I was listening to a recording of a past event so as it started to sink in I felt the euphoria I'd been feeling due to us getting the Olympics drain away from me. And the sight of a starving child during Live Aid as a song by 'The Cars' played in the background. Still can't listen to the song without feeling the sadness.

JFK was assassinated on my birthday. My mother was in bed when the news came through at teatime as she was doing nights at the hospital. We woke her up to tell her and I remember sitting on the bed talking to her about it.

In the kitchen cleaning my hockey boots for my first match the next day , playing left wing for Kent Juniors Hockey XI.

I was somewhere like Lowestoft, I think - I played a show with Tony Meehan, and came off to our palatial dressing room (in reality a kitchen) and a radio was on, and we heard about the events in Dallas - I really thought that we were in for a war with Soviet Russia at first - and I was on the RAF Reserve...

The day that JFK was assassinated I had brought my ten day old DD home from hospital. The radio was playing up and we realised something big had happened and my then DH telephoned his friend to see what this news was. Previous to this there had been talk that there would be a series of Kennedys as president.

I was at university helping a friend get ready for a Christmas ball. It was her first date with the man she later married. After hearing the news I was so shocked I was actually quite glad I was not going to the ball and could go back to my room and listen to the radio all evening

I have recently made contact, via facebook, with my then best friend who was sitting in my bedroom with me playing Beatles records on my little Dansette record player. My mother called up the stairs to come down quickly as something dreadful had happened to President Kennedy. I remember her saying, 'Please God, don't let it be a black man who has done it!'

I found the Cuban missile crisis a very anxious time as my brother was a fighter pilot and the threat of any kind of war frightened me. Kennedy's death made me wonder if we really were hurtling towards Armageddon. Millicent Martin's haunting song on That Was The Week That Was also brings back all those memories.

I had just attended an open evening at my school, where the guest speaker had had us in stitches. My friends and I left the school, chattering and laughing, and started to walk to the bus stop. One of the girls walking behind us was met by her sister who ran up and told her that Kennedy had been shot. I still remember how stunned we were and how the mood of the evening instantly changed.

I was a student nurse working in the private wing of a large London teaching hospital. As the patients had their own rooms most had radios and televisions so we had lots of bells ringing as soon as the news came through. I remember feeling very sad for his children ( also my first thought when I heard the news of Princess Diana's death) but had no thoughts about any political effects.

The saying that ' You can remember where you were when you heard the news that JFK had been assassinated' is absolutely TRUE in my case at least.I remember it was a nice Friday evening in London, warm for the time of the year. I was 15 and I had just knocked on the front door of a friends house who I was visiting to check-out some school homework. He opened the door and immediately said ' You'll never guess what, President Kennedy's been shot in America and he's dead' He was right. I would never have guessed.