John Lennon was shot dead aged 40 on 8 December 1980 outside the Dakota building in New York City. Although I was 28 at that time, I always feel that it’s the day that I grew old. His death was a huge shock, much more so for me than the death of John Kennedy.

People drew parallels between the deaths of the two. The day after Lennon was shot I cycled in the early morning to the Royal College of General Practitioners to meet a professor of general practice who was travelling to London on the sleeper from Edinburgh. I was shown into the breakfast room of the College to wait for him. As I sat there alone, I remembered that the building had once been the home of the US ambassador. Joseph Kennedy, John’s father, had once been that ambassador. John Kennedy, I reflected, must have sat in this room. It made him and Lennon feel close and me sad. The professor never arrived.

Exactly a year after Lennon was shot I was in the snowbound flat of a Pole on the edge of Warsaw. We played John Lennon records, and in Poland, which was then part of the Soviet sphere of influence, I felt more at home than in the US. That would be the case today, although I lived for a year in California and do not speak Polish.

Lennon’s poem below was the last song he ever wrote. His wife, Yoko Ono, selected it for Poems to Make Grown Women Cry. It’s a poor poem and an unsuccessful song, but his death and the long-term survival of Ono, who is now 92, give it an almost unbearable poignancy.

Grow Old With Me by John Lennon

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
When our time has come
We will be as one

God bless our love
God bless our love

Grow old along with me
Two branches of one tree
Face the setting sun
When the day is done

God bless our love
God bless our love

Spending our lives together
Man and wife together
World without end
World without end

Grow old along with me
Whatever fate decrees
We will see it through
For our love is true

God bless our love
God bless our love