I was out with others that Friday night (singing for the late Norman Buchan MP when he was the candidate for West Renfrewshire near Paisley in Scotland) and while we were tuning up in the kitchen of a community hall, Norman came in and said that Kennedy was dead -- which we thought was a sick joke.

Anyway, we did the meeting, and the news seemed to be true. We drove back to Glasgow where we were due to stay with Norman and his wife Janey, the late MEP. When we got back late, Janey had cooked spaghetti bolognaise for us all, and we sat clustered round the black and white TV to watch endless discussion -- with little real information, as I recall -- and (I think) the occasional link to the US, which seemed at the cutting edge of technology but which provided little new information.

I remember going to bed and wondering what the morning would bring.

The next day we all took off into Glasgow to make our individual journeys home - one friend to have his 21st birthday - feeling that the world had been changed irreparably.

Don't know what might have been on TV earlier in the evening, but we were back in Norman's house some time around 11.15pm, I think.