Friday 22 November 2013

Fifty years ago today

Everybody of a certain age remembers where they were. My memory is of a Ministry of Transport cricket club cheese-and-wine party held in the resident clerk's flat at the top of St Christopher House, Southwark. It was going so well that the drink ran out and a small party had to be sent out to seek more supplies - not a difficult task as the area was well-supplied with pubs and wine merchants, not to mention Becky's Dive Bar underneath the Hop Exchange. When they returned, they passed on the reports that President Kennedy had been shot. Nobody believed it at first. A senior executive officer, who should have known better, made an off-colour joke (mercifully, I cannot remember the details). After some confusion, JHH (Jimmy) Baxter gathered us all together and embarked on a long story about an epic Scottish club cricket match in which he may or may not have taken part. The punch line was weak, but it didn't matter. It had taken our minds off the tragedy in Dallas.

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