The "where were you when...?" thread

[Alex321]

9/11. I was working as a freelance for an insurance company in Basingstoke, and it had been put up on one of the screens in the office after the first plane hit, and then we all saw it live as the second one did.

Princess Di, I was watching TV as I was at home, about to leave for work, and saw it on the news then.

I don't really remember where I was when I heard about many other major events.

 

[welsh dragon]

Chicken today. No idea what else we are having or how it will be cooked, but chicken it is.

 

[Badger_Boom]

I was six when Elvis died and don't remember much apart his songs being on the radio a lot. I was transported straight back to my parents' kitchen last week when the instructor included Way Down in their HIIT class playlist.

Lockerbie is etched on my memory because it coincided with my 17th birthday.

On 31 March 1990 when the largest of the Poll Tax riots took place in Trafalgar Square, I was in London with some fellow enthusiasts attending a performance of an ancient Greek comedy at the Bloomsbury Theatre. We we're blissfully unaware until we emerged from McDonalds on the Strand after lunch and could see milling crowds and the police about 100m away. We made our excuses and left.

I was in a now defunct Bradford nightclub in 1991 when the DJ announced that the police had closed down the Haçienda.

We'd enjoyed a (unusually for us) drunken night out with some friends on the night Diana died and listened to the news reports through a crashing hangover.

I was supervising an excavation in North Yorkshire on 9/11 and was alerted to unfolding events by a colleague who was listening to the radio while working in the van. this was coincidentally the same day that I received the letter confirming that I'd been taken on strength of the Territorial Army and could begin proper training. A couple of weeks before I'd reassured my boss that he didn't need to worry about my new hobby because the TA had been called up in numbers since Suez.

I'm not sure where I was when I first heard the the Queen had died, but when King Charles III was being crowned at Westminster Abbey, I was standing in the drizzle rigidly to attention with sword drawn on the north-east quarter of the Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace. He didn't even wave.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Lockerbie is etched on my memory because it coincided with my 17th birthday.

I was reading a lot about Lokerbie last year, theres a play called "The Women of Lockerbie" that I want to try to find a performance of this year to see, I stumbled accross it after reading a story about how after the passengers belongings were released from the investigation a group of women in Lockerbie took it upon themselves to sort and wash everything so it could be returned to their loved ones.

Theres a new TV adaption of the tragedy staring Colin Firth starting soon too.

 

[figbat]

9/11 - at work hosting some American visitors. Much worry and emergency planning for them since they couldn’t fly home.

Lockerbie - in my bedroom at home watching TV, having it interrupted by breaking news.

Gulf War - in my room at university; I recall it being dark and cold outside and I was seeing images of fighting in the dessert.

QEII passing - at a school event in a large gymnasium with hundreds of other parents. There was a ripple through the crowd as the news broke.

 

[steverob]

For 9/11, I was working in an office and one of my colleagues was on the phone to his partner, who was at home watching Sky News and while you could only hear half the conversation, he was clearly trying to signal to us that something big was happening. At first it was thought it was a small plane that had hit one of the towers and that it was probably an accident, then it was realised to be a much larger one, before the second plane then hit and it was now clear it was deliberate.

We didn't have any TVs, but we did have access to the internet in the office, though back in those days there was no video or anything like that, most sites were just text with maybe a tiny photo if you were lucky. We all then spent the next few hours of the day trying to search on various news sites for more info, but quickly noticed that the vast majority of them were down or incredibly slow to connect - it was probably caused by the sheer amount of traffic of others doing exactly the same thing, but of course there were unfounded rumours flying around of maybe terrorists had cut undersea cables or something at the same time.

In the end the best solution was to find news websites based on the other side of the globe where it was still night, such as Australian newspapers or the East Asian version of CNN - they were carrying exactly the same stories and updates as the European and American sites (it was probably being mirrored automatically) but with fewer people browsing them, they would load far quicker.

 

[FrankCrank]

I'd like to set the record straight about Elvis. He's alive and..........sitting

My earliest recollection of 'news' was the tragedy of Aberfan in 1966.
I thought that this was the very first news item that had ever happened, such was the understanding of a five year old back then.

 

[Dave7]

I'd like to set the record straight about Elvis. He's alive and..........sitting
View attachment 759188

My earliest recollection of 'news' was the tragedy of Aberfan in 1966.
I thought that this was the very first news item that had ever happened, such was the understanding of a five year old back then.

I well remember that tragedy. As a young guy I did not comprehend how bad it was.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

9/11.

I was cycling across Tibet, and did not know about it till two weeks later.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Elvis dying.

Probably on a family camping holiday in Devon or Cornwall. Not something I recall hearing about at the time, as too young, and parents not Elvis fans.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The Lockerbie disaster.

Didn’t have TV on that date. Living with a couple of women in a rented house. Shortly after I would have been visiting family for Christmas.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

woke me to tell me Lady Di had died

I was on a mate’s stag do in Newcastle and read it in the morning papers the groom had gone out to get.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Fall of the Berlin Wall was just another November work day.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The Moon landings in 1969, I was plonked in front of the live TV coverage by my parents. My mother tells me I didn’t show much interest. I was but a toddler.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

When Take That split up. Who cares?