People alive when Kennedy was shot always maintain that they can remember exactly where they were when they heard the news.

For me that is certainly true. I was on my way to London to do an

after-dinner cabaret in one of the major hotels and I can clearly

remember the feeling of shock which enveloped the people around me.

I phoned the hotel and was told the diners had abandoned their

celebrations, so I went home and spent the next few hours glued to the television as the terrible saga unfolded.

But there is another group of

people, a diminishing group, it's true, for whom another date will be just as emotive, and in many ways more

personal.

Last Friday, September 3, saw the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the Second World War, and for many it was a date which changed their lives.

Those who are of an age to be able to recall the hours after war had been declared will never forget the feeling of horror when the first air raid siren sounded within minutes of

Chamberlain's speech on the radio.

It was a false alarm but it was a

situation people had no idea how to handle, since in the Great War there had been only a few Zeppelin raids.

Many children had already been evacuated from London in the hope they would be safer in the

countryside.

For most of them it was an

experience they would have preferred to have foregone, as they hated being separated from their parents. But for others it was the chance of a lifetime to get away to the fields and trees which many of them had never seen before.

The stories which filtered through to those left behind varied from the amusing to the horrendous, and even now if you talk to one of those who were evacuees you will find their memories undimmed.

Fathers and brothers went off to join the Forces, and for many young people that was the last they saw of them.

A whole generation grew up

without fathers, and in many cases without mothers too, since this was the first war in which civilians

suffered many thousands of

casualties.

There was no counselling for the bereaved - they simply did their

grieving supported, where possible, by their friends and family and then just got on with their lives.

Women were expected to do men's jobs just as they had done in the Great War but this time emancipation was more widespread and lasted into the post-war period.

For that generation, memories of what they did in the war is clearer in their minds than what they did last year.

Their numbers are reducing year on year but their achievements should never be forgotten.

One day there will be no one left who remembers Kennedy or the

outbreak of the Second World War but until then, at the going down of the sun we should remember them.

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