UK TV coverage on day of John Lennon's murder Part 4

Part 4 ITN’s News at Ten with Alastair Burnett & Sandy Gall

Parts 1 - 5 can be found here https://www.veoh.com/users/lazybillyb...

In the early hours of Tuesday 9th December 1980, I woke from a nightmare. I had dreamed that John Lennon had been murdered.

I soon realised, for reasons I was never able to explain, that my bedside radio had turned on several hours earlier than it was set to come on, and I had obviously heard the first news report in my sleep.

A mate of mine was staying in the house at the time, and we both decided there was nothing for it, but to take the day off work, get a crate of beer in, hold a wake, and watch the reports and tributes.

The TV companies threw their schedules out of the window and did a remarkable job of assembling tributes & reports. Virtually the whole day’s TV output was changed. This was long before all day news channels, and breakfast TV, so the first televised news was at 12.45 the “Mid-day News” presented by Kenneth Kendal.

Part 1 Includes the Mid-Day News presented by Kenneth Kendal, Peter Sissons presenting ITN’s News at One, lunchtime programme Pepple Mill at One, the early evening programme Nationwide, presented a special tribute with Frank Bough & Hugh Scully

Part 2 The film Help with tributes at the beginning & the end replaced the advertised film The Winning starring Paul Newman

Part 3 The Old Grey Whistle Test threw together a tribute presented by Janice Long, with contributions from, Paul Gambaccini & Andy Peebles who had just interviewed John days earlier. I had the great privilege of playing the same grand piano from the opening sequence, in situ, after John had sold Tittenhurst Park to Ringo, and gone to live in New York.

Part 4 ITN’s News at Ten with Alastair Burnett & Sandy Gall

Part 5 A tribute from Granada presented by Tony Wilson, followed by another tribute from the late BBC news.

Thanks to Paul Hillam tardis-traveller on ebay for such a good job converting my old Betamax tapes