Bugger. Now that I've mentioned it, I can't resist. I was twelve years old, in the second form of my grammar school. I was sitting in our front room with the telly on, putting off my homework, at half past six on November 22 1963. My dad was still at work, at Burtons in Pendleton, where he was the shop manager. My mum was in the kitchen washing up. The magazine programme Scene At Six Thirty had just started, presented by the much-loved Mike Scott. From his obituary:

While still appearing in a more familiar capacity, as anchorman of the regional news magazine, Scene at 6.30, Scott was the messenger in an historic Granada coup. On November 22 1963, the programme had been on the air five minutes when the telephone rang in the newsroom adjacent to the studio. It was CBS in New York with the tip that President John Kennedy had been shot. There was a rule that individual programme companies should never pre-empt ITN on big news. Denis Forman, the senior Granada executive present, called ITN and was told they were not going to break into the schedules with the story until they had it from their own reporter in America. On the impulse Forman decided to go ahead, and Scott broke the news to northern viewers half-an-hour before it reached the rest of the country.

At twenty-five to seven we knew that Kennedy had been shot. Within half an hour we knew that he was dead.