There’s been much in the media this week about a certain 50 year anniversary – the one that everyone over a certain age professes to know exactly where they were when the event occurred. You know the one I mean – it instantly shocked and rocked the world in a way that Mahatma Ghandi’s assassination didn’t, news not travelling quite so fast or as globally fifteen years earlier.
I was convinced I knew where I was the day the news came through about JFK. My mother disagreed – she said that I couldn’t possibly remember – I would have been far too young. (From where I am on the age scale now, I find that rather comforting). Of course, she was right (mothers always are); it wasn’t JFK’s assassination I remember – it was that of his brother, Robert, some five years later.
I have a vivid memory of standing on a moor somewhere in the West Country while my father listened to the news on his car radio that Kennedy had been shot. I know I was wearing shorts and a navy sweater; the weather was chilly and I remember goose pimples on my legs.
A moor somewhere in the West Country
To corroborate my memorable tableau of times past, I consulted our holiday diaries, recently passed on to me by Mum during one of her sorting-out fests.
As a family, we kept a holiday diary, the writing of which fell to me from about the age of ten. These diaries have proved invaluable over the years in settling petty family disputes about when and where we may have done something or other while on vacation. So, to prove to myself that the car radio scenario was not a figment of my imagination, I checked to see if our holiday date and venue corresponded with the shooting of Bobby Kennedy in June 1968. No doubt about it. In early June of that year we were indeed on holiday in North Cornwall, as described by my own fair hand in beautiful pre-exam italic style.
While the news item was not mentioned in dispatches exactly, other vaguer memories that I have associated with Robert Kennedy’s death were established. The speedboat ride around Padstow harbour in grey and windy weather bears out the chilliness I experienced on that remembered moor, (must have been Bodmin); followed by knickerbocker-glories in a café. I am pleased to report that the weather for the rest of our week was hot and sunny and we apparently spent a lot of time on the beach – but of that I have no true memory.
Isn’t it odd how our mind play tricks, selecting what is remembered in crystal clear vision while other things remain lost forever? Reading through some of the old diaries again jogged my memories into believing I had retrieved something from my past – but had I really? Does imagination help in recreating scenes that have slipped away?
Other, more recent world events will always stay with me, just like the memory of JFK does for people slightly older than me. I know exactly where I was when I heard about the twin towers and I know exactly how I felt the morning I woke to the news that John Lennon died, but although our London 7/7 bombings were a recent tragic loss of life – I have no recollection of what I was doing on that day.
As far as earliest memories go, I have a fleeting ghost of a picture in my head of walking along a low brick wall holding Nanna’s hand. It is sunny, there are leafy trees above and to my right is a big white house. I think I am waiting for Dad to drive up in a car. I am convinced it is where we lived briefly before moving to the country – but I would have been less than two years old and the year would definitely be pre-1963. Is this real thought or an imagined picture of my past that I have created because I have since seen that building?
And more to the point – can I ever prove Mum wrong?
Do you have a memory connected to a world event – or I wonder what your earliest memory is? I’d love to know.
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Oh, and just one more thing…
The thought occurred to me that sharp-eyed car connoisseurs will be wondering what make of swanky car my family must have been driving in those days for it to have been fitted with a car radio. Well, let me tell you. It wasn’t.
This was our car:
1968 Morris Traveller
And this was Dad’s radio:
or one very similar
And the reason I was standing on chilly Bodmin Moor was because we would have had to drive for miles to high ground so that Dad could get a signal. He was obsessed with the news. Every evening at home he would demand absolute silence while he watched the news on television which was, as I recall, often followed by something called ‘All Our Yesterdays,’ which for my sister and me at that time was just plain dull.
(We were both ace at current affairs though).
How nice it must be to read through your holiday diaries, Jenny. I wish my family had kept such a diary. I wasn’t born when Kennedy was assassinated but I’ve talked to my mother about her recollections of that day. She was folding clothes as my sister slept with As the World Turns, a popular soap opera, playing in the background. By the way, that is a cool car, you all were styling!
Thanks Jill. It amused me reading the diaries as to how much emphasis I had put on things like traffic jams and listing exactly what we had all eaten for supper.
The car looks retro now and I think that there is a Morris drivers fan club. We still see them on the roads here sometimes, but of course they are regarded as vintage now. I wonder if that makes my age group vintage, too 😉
Oh yes, Jenny, you’re like a fine wine. 🙂
How lovely!
Great, timely post Jenny. I supposed my earliest world-scale memory was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all the astronauts on board in January, 1986. I was in high school and had just boarded a bus that was to take classmates and myself to an off-campus course. The bus driver was playing the radio really loudly, and we couldn’t understand why. Eventually we caught on that he was listening to an emergency news broadcast and a chilling silence settled inside the bus as we absorbed the reality of what had happened.
That must have been a defining moment Gwen – like realising you had just entered the adult world – things get serious.
I can remember the Challenger tragedy happening but I can’t place a personal memory against it.
The thing about memories is how that can be at once both vivid and inaccurate. In time, with the retelling, we add details, omit others. All, I suppose, to ensure that the narrative we construct makes sense; pleases us. At some point we have to acknowledge that much of what we remember is likely a fiction of our own making.
I was not quite school-aged on the day JFK was killed and really have no direct ‘recollection of the event. I do know that my father, who was school master, closed school for the day. Recall, now that at the time Newfoundland was a recent entry to Canada (14 years at the time) and had very strong ties to the US, particularly Boston. My Dad, a Catholic and someone who had spent 5 years working in Boston in the 1930s always felt a deep sense of regret over the event.
We may never know exactly what happened on that day but I choose to accept the report of the Warren commission. Oswald was deeply disturbed and more than capable of performing the act. Ruby was also misguided enough to do what he did. No doubt “others” took advantage of the situation and used it to advance their own causes but to think that they possessed the collective intelligence and organization to pull off a conspiracy that level is, to me, a fanciful stretch.
Oh, and your Traveler reminded me of this. My Mom is on the left and her cousin is on the right. In the middle is her Dad (mind you the person I refer to as my Grandfather or “Grando’ was in fact her uncle and he had a Morris Minor). But look at her Dad’s car. Maybe an older Traveler?
Mind you I do recall vividly what I was doing on 9-11-2001. I was leading the implementation conference for the province’s brand new eLearning strategy for k-12 in my province. It was at Gander, NL, CA and I was responsible for organizing and leading the event, which included several reps from each of the schools affected as well as DOE and district personnel. Our launch was supposed to be a big deal. A bigger deal happened, though, unexpectedly. On that day, the trans-Atlantic aircraft marshaling over our airspace (Newfoundland is where most trans-Atlantic flights either exit or enter North America) was diverted back to Newfoundland. Plane after plane landed at Gander that morning as, so it seemed, the whole world came to town.
Although your reasoning makes sound sense, I can’t help being interested in the conspiracy theories – must be my penchant for a good story, I suppose. My younger brother was fanatical about it at one time and read everything he could get hold of – but I think he’s moved on now. He’d be great to have on your quiz team if the subject ever came up though.
It must have been eerie all those planes landing at Gander. Did you re-schedule your launch?
I’ve tried to click on the link you sent but – no luck. I thought it was because I’m not on Facebook but also sent the link to Son who tried and had the same problem – so am still in the dark about your Grando’s car. 😦
I’ll try imgur.com instead. http://i.imgur.com/GcIXHji.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/Qey3a6p.jpg the first is granda Hayes’ car. It’s the one I think might be an older model of yours and the second is Grando MacCormack ‘ s car. As for 911 no we continued but as you might guess the whole thing was surreal. I wrote a bit about it a while back… http://mauriceabarry.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/distance-education-in-nl-part-8-cdli-startup-and-pilot-year-2000-2002/
Yes, receiving the pictures loud and clear now! The cars are definitely the same vintage as the Traveller, give or take a year or two. My father-in-law drove a Morris Minor, too.
As I was writing a reply to your first message, I had the feeling I’d read about Gander, and thought it had probably been one of your posts 😉
My earliest memory was looking down at a yellow baby dress I was wearing with pearl buttons and lace on the hem. I had to have been under the age of two.
I did not shake Robert Kennedy’s hand. He was close enough to me, though. In an open car. Standing up. He shook my classmates’ hand and said “I couldn’t just be satisfied with a handshake!” A charmer. A month later, he was killed.
9/11, oddly enough, I do not remember what I was wearing. You are lucky to have those diaries. Possibly influenced you to become a writer. Thanks for the interesting post!
We’ve talked about this before, Hollis – remembering what we were wearing on a particular occasion – but I think you win this hands down with your yellow baby dress and being able to recall the detail of the buttons and the lace. Maybe that’s what influenced you to be an artist 🙂
Maybe. 🙂
I am the same. My memories of JFK are second hand. I was 6. I remember Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King vividly. I remember Ali in his prime fighting Brian London and Our ‘Enery. I know exactly where I was on 9/11. The Traveller was a lovely car. We had a Morris 1000. Holidays were Tenby or Saundersfoot. Caravan or cottage. You have started me on a voyage of nostalgia, Jenny. Was it really 50 years ago? Just like Dr. Who…..
I know – I’ve spent rather too much time today playing with the Google motif of Dr Who and not getting anywhere, but I’ve enjoyed watching the daleks whizzing round!
I remember Ali’s interview with Michael Parkinson – but I would have been a lot older then. Saturday nights at one time were defined by Match of the Day and Parky; Sunday lunch times with Brian Moore and The Big Match. Happy Days.
The best thing about the Traveller as far as my sister and I were concerned, were the open back doors: We used to sit with our legs swinging over the number plate, sandy feet brushing the central grassy ridge as Dad drove up the steep road from the beach. No seat belts, totally dangerous. Those were the days!
I remember being given a battery powered Dalek as a present once. I had endless hours of fun making it say “exterminate” and wave its ‘arms’ about. I wonder what happened to it. I was never a fan of the ITV soccer programmes as they were regional and we used to get Wolves, Leicester and when they were really desperate, Coventry or Birmingham. But MOTD was mandatory.
Hmmm, I seem to be the oldest to comment so far. I was in the Air Training Corp in Chingford at the time, it was Friday evening when the news broke in London and we had band practice. I remember Mr Hines our band instructor making the announcement and then saying – “There is going to be a war”. Quite unsettling for a group of boys between 14 and 18 years old.
At the 9-11 news I was in Winnipeg at a conference on aboriginal economic development in a local hotel. But the news that ‘America is under attack’ and the repeated film of the jetliner crashing into the twin towers was so disturbing I decided I couldn’t stay and needed to get back to my office. I had a number of staff travelling in the US and oversees at the time.
The other newsworthy early memories are related to space – I remember in science club we listened to the blips from the newly launched Sputnik. And sitting for hours watching the news of the landing on the moon.
I have two holiday-time news memories. One was the crash into the sea of a US jet testing the sound barrier. The other was of a US soldier who had had a melt down and was armed and there was a police search going on to apprehend the poor man. These were both in Margate, Kent in the 1950s.
My earliest memory, from when I was around three, was running home to my house in tears. I had been playing in our neighbours garage and I had knocked down a broom from the wall. I thought I had done something really bad, so went running home fast.
Once in a while I get glimpses of looking up at people’s legs and tables and seeing people way up high. Can you remember when you could still walk under a table without stooping.
Great post Jenny, lovely car – we had a Morris Minor and much later an Austin 1100.
Thanks Rod. Do you know, I can even remember that car’s colour name – it was Rose Taupe. This amused Dad who used to repeat it often, which is probably why I remember it. In truth, although it sounds very exotic, the actual colour resembled the dirty water you get in the jam jars full of paint brushes in the art room. The interior was nice – red upholstery, grey mats.
I don’t ever remember walking under a table without stooping – or looking up at people’s legs. That must be a man thing. 🙂
Wonderful, evocative post Jenny. Love the car and the radio too!!!
Very thought-provoking about how our memories can get mixed up and you were convinced that it was JFK’s assassination that you remembered. I am convinced that I was with my mum in our living room in our house in Surrey and she had stopped doing the ironing to watch the news on television and started crying. She thinks I would have been too young to remember and says it would have been in 1965 when she was watching Churchill’s funeral. That makes more sense I suppose. There wasn’t any daytime news in 1963 over here on the television was there?
It’s great that your family kept a holiday diary so that you could verify the facts, unlike with us!!
I was quite shocked to realise that, just like you, I don’t remember where I was when 7/7 took place. Why is that I wonder?
For me, aside from Lennon, The Twin Towers, JFK and Martin Luther, the big one was the day of the Columbine shootings in Colorado. My eldest son was 16 and had just walked in from his day at high school. His father was home that day and had the tv round the clock news on as we sat watching the events unfold, live, knowing that 2 kids were inside the school shooting their classmates one by one. My other son and daughter were playing in their rooms but they both say that they have memories of this day too.
My son went into his room and came out again to let us know that his pet rat, Blue, had died. And there we sat, watching the tragedy at Columbine unfold before us, my son’s pet rat dead and me wondering how I would ever be able to send my kids to school in the same way ever again…
Wow, you’ve got me thinking hard about this post Jenny…
I’ll sign off now with a happier thought of you as a little girl on your hols eating a yummy knickerbocker glory in a little cafe somewhere in Cornwall, happy and safe 🙂 Now that’s a keeper of a memory 🙂
I have only very vague memories of Churchill’s funeral – and actually, it might be what I’ve seen since as old footage.
As far as 7/7 goes – I’m wondering if it’s because during my working life in London, bomb scares and the real thing were so common (it was the seventies), that sadly it was just an extension of something I’d grown used to. I worked at Oxford Circus and bomb scares were frequent; the company I worked for would issue a coded warning to all staff to check their areas and report back to security, after which another coded ‘all clear’ was issued. I never used the tube, avoided busses and was pretty fit as I walked to the mainline station most evenings.
It must have been frightening in America as a Mum of three children when the Columblne shootings took place. I can imagine it was difficult to send them off to school after that.
I’m going to trawl more of my holiday diaries and find out more of the things I have forgotten 😉
Yes, I know what you mean, maybe that it about the bomb scares, we were already used to it. I remember when Mum would put my brother and I on the train at Ipswich station to Liverpool Street Station where Dad would meet us (well, he was always late because he had to have a few drinks of ‘dutch courage’ first) and there were posters up everywhere about watching out for dodgy packages
How interesting that you used to work at Oxford Circus and yes, you were obviously very impacted by those bomb scares of the 70s. Still, as you say, if nothing else, all that working kept you fit 🙂
Thank you for writing which is quite good and best wishes always, and greetings
Hello there – thank you for stopping by and commenting. 🙂
Great post – and the car! my mum and dad had a grey ‘woodie’, although I, of course, am not really sure if I remember it… 🙂
R/Frank! How lovely to see you back – I’ve just seen your post about Douthwaite. I hope this means you are back in the land of blog.
Yes, the car – sort of mock Tudor, I’d say. As it aged, moss would grow along the wooden windowsill. They don’t make ’em like that any more 🙂
Although absent I’ve still followed you (in a non-stalker-ish kind of way, of course!) oh yes – the moss, I (think!) I remember it well. And the indicators… 🙂
I was a fourteen year old Freshman in High School on that Friday in 196376, when the news came over the loud speaker. School ended early and we all went home and sat glued to the TV as they played it over and over. We listened for any new bits of information the entire weekend.
I was working in Ocala, Florida when the Challenger blew up. The trails of the shuttles as they rose in the sky they could clearly be seen that far inland. I had become somewhat immune to their appeal, and so I stayed in to work at my desk that day. My desk stood in front of a window facing the East. I remember looking up at one point and realized the shuttle was rising. All of a sudden the trail split up, with several umbrella like handles. I remember thinking that was strange, as I had never seen that happen before. Just then one of the VP’s walked in with the news about the explosion and I understood that no one could have possibly lived through that breakup. Those trails hung in the air for hours, there for me to see every time I looked up. This hit me harder, I suppose because at 36 I knew what death meant, while at 14 I was more innocent in that regard.
Oh Holly, what an incredible story. To witness something like that first hand, rather than through a TV screen would be ingrained in the mind forever – and makes it so much more real. What a memory to have. Thank you so much for sharing.
I have fond memories of the Morris Traveller. My mom was born and raised in Sussex and as a child I used to go to there with her about every second summer for family visits. She used to rent these cars or something very similar. I had quite a nostalgic surge when I saw your picture.
As to Kennedy’s murder – I have a very vague memory of it and I certainly don’t know where I was! I actually don’t really understand why such a fuss is still made about his death – from what I have read, he certainly wasn’t in the top ten of American presidents and he was less than desirable as a spouse. Yes, he was young and left a young wife and a young family. And there is the abrupt cut-off – we should have been able to see what else he could do and perhaps become. But I sometimes think that those things don’t really get at the somewhat obsessive cloud that hangs over his life. For the most part, I feel sorry for his family – they were the ones who had to really suffer his violent loss.
I have certainly read things about Kennedy that paint a less than favourable picture of the man – we’ll never know how things may have panned out if he had lived – to what extent he may have had an effect on all our lives.
Seems the Morris Traveller is remembered fondly by virtually everyone. Perhaps we could regenerate the British car industry by reproducing it and selling it at a hugely inflated price – like the new VW Beetle.
Morris Minor lover, and child of an owner, here too!
I was just about around when Kennedy was shot, and grew up, as did many of us in Ireland then, with a huge sense of reverence and awe for anything to do with the Kennedy family. An Irish Catholic getting to the highest position in the US was something of which we were collectively very proud.
Sad really, how memory can either canonize or castigate someone after they have passed away and, in JFK`s case, both have happened in huge measures.
I hadn’t realised that his Irish roots came from both his parents till recently.
People in the public eye will always court positive and negative responses – look at Princess Diana! (I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned her death as being significant considering the out pouring of grief which occurred for what seemed like years after the event).
Jenny I always I thought I was missing something and now I finaly found what it is!!! a Diary! I often sit with friends and they tell tales about me… I wonder what I should reach faster the tablets or the diary….? Enjoyed to find what can keep families together and love reading your story and if I can’t remmeber what I did that day at least I know what you did. Have a good weekend and make sure to make a note…
I came to Sevenoaks this morning and missed you, sadly, but enjoyed the exhibition very much.
I think you could keep a picture diary – well, you do, almost, with all your paintings – they must remind you of the time and place you created them.
Jenny with my memory… only some do. Thank you for coming over and sorry if only I knew I’ll pop over for coffee. glade you enjoyed it and now i don’t need to write it down as Jenny did. Thanks for your time and have a great weekend. I am sure we will catch one day for coffee in colours.
I’m always disappointed at how poor my memory seems to be, even those big life events I feel I should remember become all mixed up. I have kept diaries since being young, but have found it a bit depressing how mundane they often are! I wasn’t born for Kennedy – I do remember one of the things that really affected my childhood was what seemed at the time to be the imminent possibility of nuclear war – I remember things about the 4 minute warning and being actually quite terrified that this would happen. I do also remember exactly where I was when Nelson Mandela was released.
I used to keep a diary almost religiously when I was young – not just the holiday ones. I made a conscious decision to stop at one point – I was getting obsessive about filling something in – and often it would be mundane minutiae that would have been of no interest to anyone!
I remember watching the release of Nelson Mandela. 1990. At home, on the sofa. Understanding freedom properly for the first time.
There are some events that remain so vivid that I can tell you exactly where I was, what I was wearing, what the weather was and what sounds or smells floated around me. One was when my 7th grade English teacher came late to class and told us President Kennedy had been shot and killed.
The other was years later–when I was a high school English teacher–and I arrived late to class to tell my students about the Challenger exploding. Several of my students were from military families, and everyone in the class had been following the teacher-astronaut whose entire class of young students–as well as her own children–had watched the explosion.
Some things you don’t forget.
No, you’re so right, there are some things that we never forget. But I’ve been thinking about this after the responses I’ve had so far – we have all dwelt on the tragic things – but what about the positives? What about the moon landing in 1969 – our parents got us out of bed to watch that one. And for me, watching Martina Navratilova win her first Wimbledon, before she defected, has to be one of the most touching and memorable pieces of sport history in my life time.
Keeping a holiday diary is a wonderful idea!
It certainly helps to keep those memories alive 🙂
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