November 22nd, political infamy in the US and UK.


The 61st anniversary of JFK's assassination

The 34th anniversary of Mrs Thatcher's resignation.


Where were you on hearing?

Rich wrote:
November 22nd, political infamy in the US and UK.


The 61st anniversary of JFK's assassination

The 34th anniversary of Mrs Thatcher's resignation.


Where were you on hearing?

JFK - I was a non-corporeal bundle of cosmic potential.

Thatcher - living room watching TV.

It's odd that everyone recalls where they were when JFK was killed.

I was lying on my bed listening to the new fangled device..a radio..when the announcement came. I think I cried but I was young.

Thatcher? can't recall but I think I popped open the Champagne.

No matter how mundane what you are doing at the time of some of these events you still remember the exact moment of knowing decades later, certain events have the power to do this. I can't make a claim on 1963, my status that day was the same as Wyot's, but in Thatcher's case that mundane situation was nothing more than opening a fridge door and hearing the news coming from the TV in another room, and remaining frozen still, bent over holding the fridge open in shock and awe that the only person I could remember being there was going. Now a 21 year old will probablly recall about 6 Prime Ministers already!

9/11 obviously has this effect, but so for me does the Concorde crash on 25th July 2000. I was in a store's media department actually inspecting the picture quality of various TV screens broadcasting BBC1 when it was suddenly interrupted by Michael Buerk in my face and an image of Concorde at about 5pm. What made this even more dramatic was that the sound on the TV's was mute, making the interruption of regular TV and a very unexpected still photo of iconic Concorde appearing so jaw dropping and I remember being desperate to get the volume up, thinking 'what's this, what's this?' and trying to find how to get sound on at least one of the TV's there. When I did I blasted it out and others came forward to look. I mean just like Quantas never crashing, even seeing the silent photo of Concorde on screen during a newsflash I initially refused to believe that plane could ever fall from the sky and crash.

As the most Concorded passenger (363 flights) it was like a family member to me.

JK2006 wrote:
As the most Concorded passenger (363 flights) it was like a family member to me.

Thanks very much for answering the question I was about to ask you, if and how many times you'd used it.

That works out at 1,452 hours Concorde flying time, at 4 hours a flight, perhaps more than some of the pilots! A whole two months of your life in the air on Concorde.

How many of those flights were on BBC expenses then?

I can remember Kennedy being killed very clearly, even though I was only three and a half.
I must have found it disturbing. I remember my mother crying.

In hindsight, you would think they'd have turned the television off, wouldn't you?

I dont actually remember noticing Concorde much, and I think we were expecting it with Thatcher, so no surprise there.

Mainly it was originally self paid (I was quite rich in the 1970s), then record labels bought me business class tickets and they upgraded me, then I had to buy my own economy tickets (often highly restricted) and was automatically upgraded as the most frequent passenger (every month a return trip). For 20 years around 24 trips a year. It even worked on the French Concorde to and from Paris - they knew me well too. Automatic upgrades. Happy days. I was on the first Concorde to America (to Washington) and was interviewed on all the US TV networks when we landed. The chief pilot (Mike Bannister) and I used to laugh about it. It was normally 3 hours and I used to leave my bed in London and then get into my bed in New York at exactly the same time.