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.”
Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Best of British.
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Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Best of British.
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THE FEW ON SCREEN
Steven Taylor looks at the Battle of Britain across film and TV
Table Service
Rachel Toy looks at the history of Ridgway Homemaker tableware
Hever Forever
Claire Saul studies the newly refurbished Boleyn Apartment at Hever Castle & Gardens - a castle fit for a queen
Shining a Light
Tony O’Neil tunes into the history of the last manned lightvessel
The Man With the Goldeneye
Film stills photographer Keith Hamshere describes how he came to enter the world of James Bond
THE ORIGINAL GOLDEN BALLS
lan Wheeler looks back on 70 years of Tiger comic and Roy of the Rovers, and chats to the man who edited and oversaw both titles
To Play the Queen
Chris Hallam looks back on the life of one of the UK’s best known lookalikes
POOLING RESOURCES
Martin Handley looks at what life was like after the Vernons Girls
POSTCARD FROM= SUSSEX
Bob Barton indulges in pleasure piers and fairground delights, as well as fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit the home of Rudyard Kipling
Oh, Miss Jones
Chris Hallam looks back at the origins and legacy of Rising Damp, ITV's most successful sitcom