..where were you when you heard that Farah Fawcett had died? Probably watching the unexpected news that Michael Jackson had suddenly departed?
Not really ever in Jackson's target audience, I've no real feel for him as a musician. He didn't ever represent the music I listened to, however I couldn't dispute he had a massive influence on pop music.
I had an grudging admiration with the way he courted media speculation about his 'Man of Mystery' life in the eighties, but this got overshadowed by the surgery, and then became increasingly sinister.
Anyway, with nothing meaningful to say, this is where I was during 'The Big Ones':-
JFK - Not born, so nowhere.
Elvis - Watching the news with me mum, it probably came through on the BBC Nine O' Clock news.
Lennon - Staying the night at a mates house, aged about fourteen. We listened to the tributes on the radio through the night.
Sinatra - No idea.
Cobain- This was during a quite 'confusing' period in my life, and I was never sure whether Cobain had died and Gazza had broken his leg, or vice versa. I'm still not sure.
Diana - Like most people I was in bed that Sunday morning. My Dad rang me.
Jackson- At a Fleet Foxes gig at Wolves Civic Hall. The lead singer annouced it before they launched into their final song.
Prince Philip - At an Eddie Izzard gig at Wolves Civic Hall. He announced it from the stage. Turned out not to be true.
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Elvis - I was at my aunt's hairdressers in Salisbury - gone now (the shop, not the aunt), and was gutted. I'd been a mad Elvis fan during the seventies, at the time for me, he was cooler than Steve Austin and Evel Knievel and Bruce Lee combined..
Lennon - in bed, heard it via DLT. And still remember Not The Nine O Clock News playing 'In My Life' over a black background at the end of the show
Cobain - doing Saturday morning overtime at HMC&E
Sinatra - I was in Telford on a training course.
Diana - In bed, heard via local radio..
Ken Dodd - multiple times, in multiple places (usu:playgrounds)
Oddly enough I can't remember where I was for Sinatra either, and it wasn't too long ago.
A lot of the famous deaths that registered with me (Graham Chapman, Freddie Mercury, Frank Zappa) I remember hearing about lying in bed listening to Breakfast Radio. I guess the internet has changed all that.
I was in Spain when Diana died. The day after, the first 14 pages of the El Pais newspaper was devoted entirely to her.
Elvis - Too young really.
Lennon - got home from school and Mum told me. At the time he'd got a solo single in the charts and I thought that was the only thing he'd done, hence my feelings, at the time, of a lot of fuss over nothing.
Cobain - in bed on Saturday morning, ditto Hutchence.
Sinatra - I dunno.
Diana - in bed on Sunday morning trying to work out why Radio1 were only playing classical music.
Clough - flicking on East Midlands Today at teatime.
Syd Barrett - Thankfully Mark Radcliffe was sitting in for Steve Wright that afternoon, so we were treated to See Emily Play and some nice words from Radcliffe about the great man.
The Lovely Queen Mum, Gawd Bless Yer Ma'am - eating a sandwich at Mum's.
Elvis - listening to 'Fab' 2008 (Radio Luxembourg) on my tiny tranny, at my uncle and aunt's house in Blarney. I tried to get a bit of mass hysteria going by running down the stairs screaming 'Elvis is dead!', but they just shrugged and went back to reading the Cork Examiner.
Lennon - my radio alarm clock woke me at 7 and it was on the news. I was in my first year of A levels at college, and we all met up in the common room and got a bit sombre. Although I never liked him much - it was a good excuse for a mope.
Cobain - very late on a Friday night/Saturday morning after a lively evening in Brighton. My then boyfriend (now hubby) amazed me by bursting into tears.
Sinatra - On the BBC World Service. I was in the French Pyrenees.
Diana - middle of the night, on the World Service once again (I was at home and had fallen asleep with the radio on).
Laurence Olivier - chopping onions in the kitchen of our old flat.
Prince Phillip - at the Brighton Dome. Eddie Izzard strung the routine ( "he IS dead! No, he ISN'T!') out for over ten minutes, and it was the nearest thing I've ever seen to genuine mass hysteria. He was MUCH better at it than me.
Jacko - In a hotel near Cambridge, where I'd been on a Pain Management course for a couple of days. Within minutes, the first text from a friend saying 'he'll have trousered all the money from the London gig sales and got himself another new face by now' had arrived.
I did feel a bit sad for poor Farrah - what a horrible way to go - but feel relatively little about Jacko. Does that make me bad?
Elvis - depends on what time of day his death was announced over here. I was only four so I was either asleep or pushing Dinky cards around the carpet.
Lennon - at my aunt's house, where my mum was doing some decorating. My mum's reaction was a stoic"Aww, and he was such a lovely singer!". It was John Craven's Newsround that broke it in that particular house.
Shankly - news of his heart attack had already come through, then the family were in the car and my brother's friend was with us, and he's heard it on the news just before we picked him up.
Rossiter - it was a Saturday evening BBC bulletin, I think presented by John Humphrys.
Cobain - I've no idea on the specifics but I was living in Huddersfield at the time.
Sinatra - watching the 9 O'Clock News, like a lot of folk.
Diana - ah, on the radio. One of the select few disc jockeys ever to go into impromptu 'obit' mode as I was doing weekend overnights at Hallam FM. There had been no royal obits in commercial radio's lifetime so it was new territory. I came out of it unscathed.
Queen Mother - doing football commentary at Millwall v Stockport County, got it in the talkback in order to tell us to go to obit mode at 6pm.
Peel - his death was announced with an embargo and so BBC hacks I knew were texting the news around long before it was publicly revealed in the 2pm bulletins of the day.
Jackson - woke up to a thousand text messages at 4.45am as I'd gone to bed before the news broke the night before.
Always wondered if anyone remembers the Beckinsale demise?
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