When J F K was shot

BY ROBERT ABBOTT

One of the advantages of being a foreman in a big factory was the social perks. Forty years ago, I was in charge of transport and stores at the Hotpoint plant in Peterborough and therefore belonged to the Foremen's Association that had regular monthly outings. 

Often it was a day trip to London to see a football match or a West End show while most times we took a look at the wheels of industry in motion by visiting other factories such as Perkins Diesel, Peter Brotherhood Ltd and Baker Perkins, together with electricity and gas installations and sometimes even a brewery or perhaps participating in an adventurous car rally. 

On one occasion, it was a coach trip to the BRM headquarters at Bourne where the owner Raymond Mays was keen to give outsiders a glimpse of his work on racing cars. In those days, the workshops in Spalding Road were employing 100 men and although most of us only had a small understanding of what was going on, we knew that the BRM had become the first all-British car to win the world championship the previous year with the company's number one driver Graham Hill at the wheel, a feat that had earned him the world championship. 

It was an interesting tour for the group, even though our own factory produced the more mundane refrigerators and washing machines rather than fast cars, but the most memorable part of the visit had nothing to do with either but concerned events on the other side of the Atlantic. 

We inspected the workshops and were given detailed explanations about the precision engineering needed to manufacture high performance sports cars and although it was all very interesting, many of us were hoping that it would soon be over and that we might round off the evening by sinking a few pints in the Burghley Arms. But then a messenger rushed in shouting: "Kennedy has been shot." 

There were gasps all round because a chap called Bernard Kennedy was a member of our association although he was not with us that evening. Then someone called out: "Don't be stupid. Who would want to kill Kennedy?" 

Who indeed? But it was true. It was not our Kennedy but President John F Kennedy who had been shot through the head by a marksman as he drove through Dallas, Texas, in an open car on his way to a political festival. The 46-year-old president slumped in his seat and his wife Jacqueline cradled him in her arms as the car sped to nearby Parkland Hospital where he died 25 minutes later. 

The young president's assassination caught the public imagination and soon the one question sweeping the world was: where were you when Kennedy was killed? Millions of people since have tried to identify exactly where they were and what they were doing when the fatal shots were fired because his death seemed to herald the end of an era. 

I was in the BRM workshops in Bourne and it is a day I shall never forget. It was Friday 22nd November 1963.

* Contributed by Robert Abbott of Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, England.