On Friday, November 22, 1963, the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination spread around the globe. The event occurred in Dallas, Texas, and the news reached England via ticker-tape at 6:42 pm, just 11 minutes after the shots were fired.
As the BBC’s Monitoring Service scanned the airwaves for any updates, a bulletin emerged from the Voice of America at 7:40 pm, confirming that President Kennedy was dead.
The assassination of President Kennedy is one of those moments when many people can recall what they were doing.
The audience at the Regal cinema in Abingdon were watching The Longest Day, the American film drama about the D-Day landings.
The reel paused, the lights flickered on, and after a hubbub, a hush fell, as a man appeared on stage.
He said: “I am afraid to inform you ladies and gentlemen that the President of the United States has been assassinated. We have no further information at this time.”
Elizabeth, who was there, remembered the two minute silence that followed the announcement. Mike, was a member of the Royal Air Force, and for him the news carried another significance. He thought that the potential for conflict with the USSR, a threat that had been growing, now seemed an imminent reality.
(Elizabeth and Mike’s comments were reported in ‘Cinemas of Abingdon’ by Bob Frampton. Details of the timings came from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/how-the-kennedy-assassination-caught-the-bbc-on-the-hop-78973.html)
I was in the Regal that evening with a group of fellow John Mason pupils, we used to go every Friday. Being 15 years old I didn’t realise the significance of the announcement at the time. I think the man who made the announcement was the Manager, Mr Fox.