Dare I ask where you were when you heard the news?

[Gordon]

I have to confess that I was unaware of it all. I was in my first year at University in Liverpool doing engineering and lived in digs in the NE suburbs where there was no TV and I did not read newspapers then having no sense of politics despite my father's keen old style Beavanite socialism. I do not recall the University students' union being full of it, as perhaps it was, but it made no impact at all. That's us disfunctional engineers for you.

Should I feel shame? What would have happened if he had not out-faced Khrushchev over Cuba? His brothers' fates were interestinh for their contrast.

BTW I have no idea where I was when John Lennon was shot either. Not that I am comparing the two people's deaths or lives or legacies.

[Gordon]

....It’s Alright Leaving Me…

the broadcast engineer's get out of jail card!!

The other one is: "stop me when you see something you like"

Incidentally, videotape recording was very definitely with us by 1963, I wrote about that as well – in the same book

Yes it was, and had been in the US since 1956 when Ampex [including Ray Dolby] revealed their first Quadruplex machine. Brutes they were with an air pump attached for the vacuum that held the tape against the spinning head wheel. The European version took a while longer but was around by 1963. Trouble back then was different TV scanning standards which meant that although Telstar [July 1962] and Syncom 1 [July 1963] and Goonhilly etc was up and running, live signals had to be converted using rather crude methods. I remember Ediview, that stuff that you coated on the tape to see the tracks so that you could cut the tape with a razor blade!!? What a faff!! And that strange little noise as the edit went past the heads because of the lap edit. I don't remember any butt edits, was there a method like audio? Perhaps the tape was too wide and anyway electronic methods came along.

Must get that book!!

[muzzer]

I was a few years yet in the making when it happened, but it fascinates. I have a theory about this sort of event that if you are around at the time it has a completely different impact than if you are reacting to it after the event, when the myth has already been planted. See Princess Diana. Plenty of people in the US thought the Kennedys were a Very Bad Thing Indeed. And indeed he was, like all highly-driven figures, complex and deeply flawed in a way that the myth omits. None the less fascinating for that, of course.

[Mary Chambers]

BTW I have no idea where I was when John Lennon was shot either. Not that I am comparing the two people's deaths or lives or legacies.

Neither have I, nor do I have any memory of when Elvis died. I couldn't even give a year for either event. I do remember where I was when I heard about Diana's death, though. And Benjamin Britten's.

Although the Kennedy assassination was such a shock at the time (I was 23, by the way), I have absolutely no interest in it now.

[Serial_Apologist]

In my boarding school houseroom doing Prep. The house captain burst in with "An announcement I have to make: President Kennedy has been assassinated, it has just been announced on the radio". Everybody reporting in on a chat show this morning was speaking of tears, shock, and hours of frozen communication. I don't remember tears, (seem improbable here in the UK), I do the shock, though.

[teamsaint]

I was a few years yet in the making when it happened, but it fascinates. I have a theory about this sort of event that if you are around at the time it has a completely different impact than if you are reacting to it after the event, when the myth has already been planted. See Princess Diana. Plenty of people in the US thought the Kennedys were a Very Bad Thing Indeed. And indeed he was, like all highly-driven figures, complex and deeply flawed in a way that the myth omits. None the less fascinating for that, of course.

Reading about The Kennedy assasination is a good place to start, if one wants a glimpse of the workings of the various "wheels within wheels" and general shenanigans of the CIA and other agencies that don't seem to be all that accountable.

As for political dynasties......

[Stillhomewardbound]

Fascinating to read these recollections. A filter for my later memory was that of my father's own recollection. I provided the following narrative for his website describing his experience exactly fifty years ago this evening.


"It was just a little after six-thirty on a dark November evening in 1963 when TP arrived at the Stage Door of the Royal Court Theatre off Sloane Square where he was appearing in JP Donleavy's 'The Ginger Man'.

Just inside the door fellow cast member, Anna Gilchrist, was on a payphone. As TP came in she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and, across her shoulder, hissed, 'They've shot him'. 'Who?', TP asked, confused, but sensing the air of alarm. 'Kennedy! ... President Kennedy'.

TP reeled as he was hurled back six months in time and his ears filled with the cheers of the huge crowds gathered around him in Dublin's O'Connell Street, where just yards away the bronzed and handsome figure of the American President passed, standing in his limousine, waving and beaming his charismatic smile.

Kennedy's state visit to Ireland was the most anticipated and astonishing of homecomings. Here was an Irish American whose great, great grandfather had set sale from New Ross in Co.Wexford on board an emigrant ship with nothing but a pack on his back and now his great, great grandson had reached the highest office in the land and probably of the free world.

TP knew all there was to know about Jack Kennedy and had followed his career from his days as a promising new, young member of the US Senate. He followed American politics and culture closely and was teased by his colleagues at the Abbey for the copy of Time magazine he always seemed to have with him. 'Here he comes - Mr.Time!', they'd josh.

Now the news was breaking across a London tea-time and rush hour, first that Kennedy had been shot, and then a while later the terrible confirmation that his wounds had been fatal.

Millions lost a new found hero in that hour and none felt the blow more keenly than TP McKenna."

[Padraig]

I remember where I was. I was in Dublin, in O'Connell Street. I stopped outside a big shop window where dozens of television sets were showing scenes of confusion. It took some time to find out what had happened and my wife and I were overcome by disbelief, since Kennedy

[slarty]

I was at the movies that evening in Dundee watching (I kid you not - PT109) and they stopped the movie halfway through, the manager announced the news and that they would not be continuing. Everyone was issued with a raincheck ticket to return to see the movie. I never did.
It affected me a great deal at the time, and having studied the whole thing for decades since, it still disturbs me.

[Roehre]

Being 7 I was in bed - but i woke up as my parents' got a short visit of our neighbours to tell Kennedy had been shot -out neighbours had a TV-set, ours was to come a couple of months later and my father left with our neighbour. That was something he never would do. My mother came up to my bedroom to tell me that something had happened, but that was not serious for us.

The actual news I heard at the 7am BBC news as we were preparing breakfast-as I had still saturday morning Primary school. To this moment I can recall vividly the scenery of the assassination as I then imagined - the fantasy of a 7 yr old boy.
That afternoon we went to my nain, my taid had died six weeks earlier. I recall that literally everybody we heard/met that day was talking about it - something I then found very, very boring: Kennedy had been killed. So what?....

I still have got the papers of nov 23rd-26th in my collection (thanks to my parents, that is).

I also recall the first time I saw the Zapruder film, these days exactly 25yrs ago.

[johnb]

It was my school's Speech Day and we were all gathered in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. The headmaster interrupted the proceedings to make the announcement.

[marthe]

I've a vivid memory of this day 50 years ago. It was a clear but cold autumn day. I was 13 and in the eigth grade at an RC elementary school in the suburban Boston (Mass.) area. We were getting ready for lunch break when our teacher came into the classroom and told us that the president had been shot and to pray for him. We were all shocked but hopeful as he was still alive at this point. School was dismissed and we walked home in silence...and hope. I, and my siblings, sat in front of our black and white TV for the next four days watching events unfold ...the news of JFK's death, the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson, the assasination of the assasin Lee Harvey Oswald, the funeral procession, the funeral mass, the heads of state etc. For us, it was as if we had lost a family member. JFK was one of our own in a way. He was from Boston and Catholic. Our own archbishop and cardinal, Richard Cushing, said the funeral mass. For my family, there was also the Newport, RI connection. Kennedy was married in Newport and spent summers here. Jackie's family had a house here. This morning there was a memorial mass at St. Mary's Church where John Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier were married in 1953. Many Newporters have a JFK or Jackie story to tell.

[John Wright]

I was ten at the time, in Scotland, and remember the Kennedy assassination vividly played out on TV, and with events soon after, Oswald/Ruby, I had a great interest in the event, keeping newspaper cuttings etc for a while.

In the late 1980's/90s I lived in USA for a while and one vacation went with wife and little kids to historical places in Virginia and also to D.C. and we visited Arlington Cemetery to see the 'everlasting flame'. We walked round in a group of about 20 people to see the flame. I knew Robert Kennedy's resting place was just a few steps away and I visited it alone when I realised the group was moving on without even a mention of Robert.

[Stillhomewardbound]

I was ten at the time, in Scotland, and remember the Kennedy assassination vividly played out on TV, and with events soon after, Oswald/Ruby, I had a great interest in the event, keeping newspaper cuttings etc for a while.

In the late 1980's/90s I lived in USA for a while and one vacation went with wife and little kids to historical places in Virginia and also to D.C. and we visited Arlington Cemetery to see the 'everlasting flame'. We walked round in a group of about 20 people to see the flame. I knew Robert Kennedy's resting place was just a few steps away and I visited it alone when I realised the group was moving on without even a mention of Robert.

John, there's very striking footage of RJK's funeral at Arlington which took place in the dark of night with only some arc lights and mourners holding candles for illumination. This Pathe News feature makes for very moving viewing:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/robert-kennedy-funeral-1

[Serial_Apologist]

Amazing to think he would have been 96 today, had he not died of natural causes. For a 46-year old he looked young, at a time when men tended to look older than they do nowadays for their years.