Living in an RAF married quarter at RAF St Athan and I think I was at home when I heard, but of course then we didn;t have mobile phones nor the internet and so we only heard it as a newsflash on the tele I think. I worked at the House of Fraser in cardiff but I can't remember too much about the reaction from staff. I know that I was a couple of weeks pregnant with my first, but I didn't know that then, not until the new year. My husband was a huge Paul McCartney fan and had all his solo LPs.
I didn't know until I found my mum crying about it when I came home. I was 8 then, and she was a HUGE fan, as you can tell as |I have one the most common names of my generation!
I had just started my first 'proper job' in the office of a seed factory. I had a crush on Nigel Bummit and it was there I learned to spell mesembryanthemum and looked forward each summer to the stocktake whereby Nige & I were locked away in the back room.... ;-)
I can't say I was gutted, though did like JL & obviously didn't agree with the whole thing.
I was at work, a colleague told me, and I was stunned. I thought about it all day, and when I got home and the tea-time news was on, I cried because I realised it was really true.