Where were you...?

My blip of a couple of days ago was of an icon and one of those icons of which people ask the question 'where were you when you heard .... - Princess Diana was dead?' Me, I was in bed, a Sunday morning and the boys were up, watching tv next door. One of them came through to tell us. I didn't believe him but of course, he was right and the rest of the day was spent with ITV and BBC newsreaders in the corner rerunning the events of that Paris tunnel.

There are others - Elvis Presley, also in bed alone, in Huntly John Lennon, in Inverurie but for my generation the defining question was 'where were you when you heard Kennedy had been shot?' I was at Guides and it was a shock, news brought in by a parent, and we talked about it all the way up the road. Even for me at my tender age he was a shining beacon of change. We'd come through the Cuba Missile crisis (I remember that too) and he was going to take us to a better age. Of course, we now know about his personal frailties and betrayals, something I view in a less charitable light, now I can empathise with his betrayed and cheated wife. One thing that has surprised me is realising young Jackie was in 1963 - only 34, not much older than my own daughter in law. That is the distance of age. When I was 10 34 was ancient, now ....

So that was 50 years ago, almost to the hour. It not only influenced a generation but more prosaically gave me my first acquaintance with the word 'trauma', in the 'Sunday Times' account of what happened in Dallas in the minutes and hours after the shooting. My memories of that evening,m that week-end fix me in a generation, in a particular time.

Then the next day, the first episode of 'Dr Who' and I remember that too. I watched the programme about the William Hartnell years and there it was the first set in a scrapyard, the first Doctor and the first daleks. There is much more ho ha on the BBC about Who than Kennedy, even Google got in the act today and I'll be watching the 50 year anniversary episode tomorrow along with millions round the world. And where was I when Who started - in the living room at home, teatime Saturday.

I suppose all of that makes me part of living history, though not an icon.

So today's blip had to be the knitted daleks in the shop window on the Canongate while I was on my to 'La Garrigue' for lunch with K, down from Brechin (and btw uniquely 'La Garrigue' sells Pousse Rapiere the orange Armangnac liqueur from the Gers. I have a bottle and a half in the kitchen.) There is also a notice promoting Harris tweed 'as worn by the Doctor'. Unfortunately the daleks are not for sale.

I won't be hiding behind the sofa tomorrow night - well i don't think so.

So where were you?