JFK and 22nd Nov

[johncorrigan]

Yes, it was a Friday. I was in Dublin that day, and along with half of O'Connell Street I watched the unbelievable news unfolding through a TV shop window on multiple screens. JFK was a saint in Ireland at that time.

I have a memory of the White Heather Club being interrupted by the news - Andy Stewart cut off in his prime - so we knew it was a big deal.

[Anna]

I really don't get this adoring Kennedy fan base. He was moderately good looking, had loads of money. could buy off anyone in the world (and shag anyone) and bought his way to the top via his Pa, plus his corrupt lawyers could silence anyone, and so how come he is made out to be some sort of Saint?

[Lateralthinking1]

Sounds like Tony Blair.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

PLEASE STOP, EVERYONE. HERE IS THE NEWS!

November 22nd is my son's birthday and today his first child was born.
Never mind Kennedy, Britten, etc. I'm a grandfather!

[Anna]

PLEASE STOP, EVERYONE. HERE IS THE NEWS!

November 22nd is my son's birthday and today his first child was born.
Never mind Kennedy, Britten, etc. I'm a grandfather!

Oh, well done your son. (and, more importantly, his wife who had the trials and tribulations) Weight, name, all the important details, please!!

[Mary Chambers]

PLEASE STOP, EVERYONE. HERE IS THE NEWS!

November 22nd is my son's birthday and today his first child was born.
Never mind Kennedy, Britten, etc. I'm a grandfather!

Congratulations! How clever to have a child on one's own birthday. Boy or girl?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A girl.

[Mary Chambers]

I really don't get this adoring Kennedy fan base. He was moderately good looking, had loads of money. could buy off anyone in the world (and shag anyone) and bought his way to the top via his Pa, plus his corrupt lawyers could silence anyone, and so how come he is made out to be some sort of Saint?

I don't think he is, is he? But at the time we (or anyway I) didn't know much about him as a person. I think he was seen as quite glamorous by many, and it was a shock when he was shot. Now, when people are less innocent, the reaction would probably be different. At the time, it was a bit like the Twin Towers.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh, well done your son. (and, more importantly, his wife who had the trials and tribulations) Weight, name, all the important details, please!!

Weight: 6 lb 8 ounces.
Name: Eine Kleine Alpensinfonie
Important details: mother and baby fine; father a changed man

[Anna]

A girl.

How lovely, a girl is just perfect. And, today is St. Cecilia's day, she will be musical just like her Grandpa!

[Mary Chambers]

A girl.

Oh, how lovely. I wish we could manage to have girls in our family. If we ever do, I'll be shouting it from the rooftops.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I am very advanced for my age. Always was. After launching the IBM System/360 from my push chair on 7 April 1964, I had significant but comparatively minor roles in the space programme and the Woodstock festival. Since then regrettably nothing much has happened. I admit to boredom more than anything else. It crushes creativity.

Forrest Gump?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How lovely, a girl is just perfect. And, today is St. Cecilia's day, she will be musical just like her Grandpa!

Thank you Anna.

[Mandryka]

I still have the programme for the performance I was at that night - Marguerite and Armand with Fonteyn and Nureyev at the Royal Opera House. It says 'Friday, 22nd November 1963' on the front. A boy we knew said in the interval that someone had told him Kennedy had been shot. We thought he must have been joking, but the boy said he didn't think he was. At the end of the interval (I think) Frederick Ashton came in front of the curtain and announced that Kennedy had been killed, and requested no applause for the next ballet, Macmillan's The Invitation. There was a shriek of shock from the audience. We then stood in silence for one minute. (I wrote all this down in pencil on the programme at the time.)

It was Benjamin Britten's fiftieth birthday, and there was a celebratory concert performance of Gloriana at the Royal Festival Hall, with Pears and Sylvia Fisher. The people there (of which I might easily have been one) also heard the news in the interval, but it was kept from Britten for as long as possible to avoid spoiling the party.

PS I was 23.

This kind of thing really annoys me. Kennedy's assassination may have been a major event, but it wasn't like war had been declared, was it?

Kennedy was not a British ruler, politician, or subject. He was known to be mildly anti-British.

There should have been no announcement and it should have been business as usual, re:applause.

Incidentally, while Nureyeve and Fontaine were at the ROH and Gloriana was at the RFH, the Mayfair Theatre played host to a production of Six Characters In Search Of An Author, featuring Sir Ralph Richardson.

[scottycelt]

PLEASE STOP, EVERYONE. HERE IS THE NEWS!

November 22nd is my son's birthday and today his first child was born.
Never mind Kennedy, Britten, etc. I'm a grandfather!

Now you've suddenly managed to become a right pain in the ****!

Seriously, many congrats to your son and and yourself, EA ... and, oh, the proud mum of course! ...