Adverts.
There are lots of anniversaries this weekend. Amongst them is the fiftieth anniversary of my first memory.
Like most people in the West who were alive at the time, I remember learning of the death of JFK.
Or rather, I remember some of the repercussions; or the lack of them.
I was nearly four at the time. My family had been away - either for the day or a couple of days, to somewhere near the sea. The south coast in November seems a bit far fetched, but that's where we had been.
Getting back to London, we watched the news on the tv, which featured the announcement of Kennedy's death, before I went to bed.
Sometimes, as a kind of treat, I was allowed to watch the adverts on tv rather than going straight to bed. So we must have been watching ITV rather than the BBC.
So as the news ended, I asked my father if I could watch the ads. He replied that there probably wouldn't be any ads - because of the shocking news.
But there were. And I got to watch them, before being sent to bed.
(My brother remembers watching the first episode of Dr Who, too, though I have no recollection of that, and he doesn't know if he saw it on the first broadcast or the repeat.)
Like most people in the West who were alive at the time, I remember learning of the death of JFK.
Or rather, I remember some of the repercussions; or the lack of them.
I was nearly four at the time. My family had been away - either for the day or a couple of days, to somewhere near the sea. The south coast in November seems a bit far fetched, but that's where we had been.
Getting back to London, we watched the news on the tv, which featured the announcement of Kennedy's death, before I went to bed.
Sometimes, as a kind of treat, I was allowed to watch the adverts on tv rather than going straight to bed. So we must have been watching ITV rather than the BBC.
So as the news ended, I asked my father if I could watch the ads. He replied that there probably wouldn't be any ads - because of the shocking news.
But there were. And I got to watch them, before being sent to bed.
(My brother remembers watching the first episode of Dr Who, too, though I have no recollection of that, and he doesn't know if he saw it on the first broadcast or the repeat.)