Peter Goers

So that also left us in the dark.

A rising sense of panic, perhaps?

Although I did something that, you know, you never know what you're capable of.

And during all that, whilst trying to reassure an old lady, I had the presence of mind to compile a list of all the people that I would need to inform.

which turned out to be very helpful.

Eventually, someone from Pan Am, New York, rang and asked me to verify my identity.

And then they gave me the news that both my parents, my mother age 50, my father age 52, were dead.

The plane had left the runway in a thunderstorm and had got only 100 feet in the air and the wind shear had pulled it down and it had hit trees and crashed into a suburb and burst into flames and killed 145 people on all hands on the plane and eight people on the ground, including four children.

And they said, we'll ring you back in 20 minutes with arrangements for you to come to New Orleans immediately to identify the bodies.

Then I had to console my grandmother, who was a very good Baptist.

And I held her in my arms and recited the 23rd Psalm.

And then I had the duty to tell my sister, who was in denial that this could ever happen, and then I had the duty, which was the hardest thing I've ever done, Richard, to have to go round to my other grandmother's house knowing that she wasn't listening to the radio or watching the television.

She was completely oblivious and I had to walk in and tell her that her only son was

was no more.

That was a very hard thing to do.

So your dad was an only child?

Both my parents were only child.

Well, that's how grief affects you.

My maternal grandmother, and I'd been with her, so she was part of the process of waiting.

So she was, I think, expectant.