It was the question that defined a generation: Where where you when JFK was shot?
Not my generation though – I wasn’t born until after the fact.
Yet I often heard people talking about what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. It was a rare moment in time, that everybody could pinpoint exactly.
I didn’t really comprehend what that was like, until the years following the death of Princess Diana.
The Royals Were Our Extended Family
When I was growing up, it was almost like the royals were part of our extended family. No doubt this was partly because my maternal grandmother was born in England.
Plus, there is a weird family resemblance. When we were kids my little sister thought those portraits of the Queen, found in most government institutions, were actually pictures of our mum!
Both Grandma and my mum were devoted to the trashy mags, so we were always up on the latest gossip; and they both collected royal memorabilia.
I could hardly believe my eyes as I watched the young and beautiful Diana – only a few years’ older than my 14 year old self – marry Prince Charles. He seemed so old!
Sadly their fairytale fell apart, but by then Diana was a dazzling star in her own right.
Then came the day when the news broke – she’d been in a car crash in Paris.
How I Heard that Diana had Died
If memory serves me correctly, 31 August 1997 was a Sunday.
The hubster was the sound technician at our church, and so had left for the music rehearsal and the evening service.
Meanwhile, I was at home looking after our two children – our three year old son, and nine month old daughter. I was sitting on the couch giving the baby a bottle, when the news of the car crash flashed up on the TV.
It was a shock but I wasn’t too worried. This was Princess Diana after all! She would have the best in medical care and would no doubt recover.
Except she didn’t.
The next news bulletin revealed the awful truth: Diana was dead.
It just didn’t seem possible!
Twenty Years Later
Twenty years later, it still doesn’t seem real, let alone that the Princess has been gone for so long.
Prince William is now the same age his mother was when she died.
My own tiny tots are all grown up.
But it’s amazing how clearly I remember what I was doing when Diana died.
What were you doing when Diana died?!
I remember it so clearly. I was just pregnant with Sarah – really only just – and we’d been having lunch at the local yum cha. It was in the car coming back that we heard the first news reports – that she’d been in an accident & was being treated in hospital. It sounded like she would be ok, but of course she wasn’t. In Dec 2015 I visited Kensington Palace to see an exhibition of some of her dresses – they were beautiful – as was she.
I thought the same thing, couldn’t believe it when she actually died. Life is short and fragile, another reminder to make every moment count!
Hi Janet – I was home that Sunday and hadn’t heard anything about it until my Mum rang that afternoon. We were chatting for a few minutes and then she said, ‘Isn’t it terrible about Diana’. I said, ‘Why, what’s happened?’ Shows how famous she was that you didn’t need any context; just the name ‘Diana’. I turned on the TV and stayed glued for several hours. It shocked me even more because I had just been in England a few weeks before and Diana and I were born in the same year. So every time they flashed up a pic of her face with 1961-1997 on it, I thought ‘that could be me’. One of Tim and my first dates was to stay home and watch the funeral. That won him a lot of Brownie points 🙂
And even though I was only two years old, I know what I was doing when JFK was killed. I had just thrown up on Mum in the car and we’d stopped so she could clean up. Apparently the service station attendant ran over and told Mum and Dad he’d heard it on the radio. What an intuitive little sausage I must have been to realise something of grave consequence had just happened 😉
And now you’ve got me started, I was making sandwiches at the Butterboard stand at the Ekka when I heard Elvis had died. I went and sat on a seat in a deserted part of the wool pavilion at lunchtime to read all the newspaper reports. When I looked up 20 mins later, I was slap in the middle of the audience for the fashion show 🙂
By the way, here’s some trivia from my psychology days. Remembering where you were when you heard a particularly gripping piece of news is an example of ‘flashbulb memory’ 🙂
Thanks for sharing
Loved hearing all your memories Nola, and I don’t doubt you remember when JFK was killed. I was 2 1/2 when the first moon landing happened in 1969 and I remember Mum and the neighbour across the road watching it on TV – I was most put out that Play School wasn’t on!!!
Such a sad but very clear memory. I to was at home looking after my 4 year old and 2 year old. I was just pregnant with my third at the time. My mum rang asking if I’d heard the news of the Princess. When she told me Diana was gone I asked her if it was a bad joke. I immediately turned in the news saw that it wAs indeed true and proceeded to cry for days on end. Such a tragedy but what a credit her sons are to her
They sure are, she would be so proud.
I was three when JFK died but I do remember Robert Kennedy’s assassination. I was making giant foam banana costumes on my veranda when my mother rang me and told me about Diana.
LOL I’ll bet you’ve never looked at bananas the same way again!
It was a Sunday. I was actually housesitting for one of my brother’s friends and they had a big TV – a rarity back then – and I had it on… so still remember my shock.
It’s amazing how that moment has been etched on to each of our memories, so we remember exactly what we were doing at that point in time …