On Friday 22 November 1963, Violet Bonham Carter went to the cinema on her own. She watched the film I’m Alright Jack, a 1959 comedy starring Peter Sellers, before returning home by bus to cheerfully tell her daughter Cressida all about it. But before she could begin, Cressida’s words caught her short: “Kennedy has been shot – he was killed.”
“I felt a personal stab of shock and horror more strongly than I could have thought possible,” Violet wrote in her diary. “And with it a sense of terror for the world of which he was the Atlas – the only leader above lifesize. His stature, power, courage and judgement gone.”
Her reaction was not unusual. She was a woman of 76, who could clearly remember both world wars. Yet for her and many others who lived through it, the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, would remain the single most shocking and dramatic news story to break during their lifetime. In the 60 years since, only the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 and the terror attacks of 2001 have had a comparable impact.
It is often said that everyone old enough at the time will always be able to remember where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The actor Leslie Phillips had been in the process of being interviewed. The question-and-answer session was interrupted by a phone call which the interviewing journalist took. Phillips recalled: “A few moments later he let out a great shout of despair and collapsed as if he’d been sandbagged.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2023-Ausgabe von Best of British.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2023-Ausgabe von Best of British.
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"A Personal Stab of Shock and Horror"
Chris Hallam looks back on the British reaction to President Kennedy's assassination
A BUILDING BONANZA
Claire Saul samples some of the entries in a new publication from the National Trust
ON TARGET
Russell Cook browses through 50 years of a publishing phenomenon
The Rise and Fall of Poole Pottery
Steve Annandale charts the history of what was, by the 1990s, Dorset's most significant tourist attraction
DOCTOR HO-HO!
Robert Ross takes a swift spin through some of the comedy stars who have stumbled into the Tardis
The Three Ronnies
Martin Handley celebrates the talents of a trio of composers
A RARE OLD SCRAMBLE
Colin Allan has fond memories of tuning in to Grandstand to watch scrambling on winter afternoons in the sport's golden age of the 1960s
THE ULTIMATE RESPONSE
Roger Harvey nominates a sculpture in his native Newcastle as the most poignant and powerful memorial to duty and heroism
POSTCARD FROM CHESHIRE
Bob Barton finds out about subsidence, timber-framed buildings, boat lifts, waterways and Lewis Carroll, taking it all with a pinch of salt
OVER HERE
Michael Foley looks back at how the people of East Anglia reacted to the American \"invasion\" during World War Two that saw the building of dozens of airfields