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

[Ming the Merciless]

The 1987 hurricane in the south. I was living up north and laughing at softie southerners.

 

[presta]

The most memorable part of 9/11 for me was learning how 20 minutes of well edited news footage contains more information than 4 hours of prattling pundits and presenters filling airtime when they've nothing to fill it with. Less is more.

I remember watching the 2011 riots on TV at Cambridge YHA, when a couple of youngsters walked in from the next room, looked at the TV and said "Yawn, that was on the internet 10 minutes ago".

I watched the New Orleans flood at Eyam YHA, and the Concord crash at Blaxhall YHA.

My earliest recollection of 'news' was the tragedy of Aberfan in 1966.

Mine too, followed by the Torry Canyon, and Vietnam.

"Everyone remembers where they were when they heard Kennedy had been shot"
Not me, I was only 5.

 

[raleighnut]

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.

There were a couple of big ' servers' for the internet located in the World Trade Centre.

 

[Beebo]

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

One of my teachers helped dig people out. He used to talk about it to us, but as a youngster you just don’t understand the impact this must have had on him or the close knit community.

 

[Beebo]

The 1987 hurricane in the south. I was living up north and laughing at softie southerners.

I got a day off school as we couldn’t get out of the road.
The wood behind my parents house still has trees on the ground which fell almost 40 years ago now.

 

[Chris S]

911 - I was sitting in an internet cafe in Sparkbrook. There were a group of Somalis staring at a TV, I couldn't see the screen. There was a sudden burst of excitement and they started talking loudly. When I got home I realized that they'd been watching the Twin Towers live on TV and had seen the second plane crash.

 

[Drago]

The 1987 hurricane in the south. I was living up north and laughing at softie southerners.

I was darn surfing and wondering what all the fuss was about.

 

[postman]

How about 9-11 Twin Towers i was on late turn despatching some Forward Road.The drivers had a rest room and one came out and said to a bunch of us come and take a look at this.It was thought to be a joke.

 

[MichaelW2]

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.

I was six and clearly remember seeing he moon landing live on tv and understanding the significance.
I remember Yom Kippur 1973.
9/11 I was at work at a big US owned defence contractor.
Di, I was in bed, listening to radio. I was no more affected than by any other celebrity passing.
Most of these hatch, match and dispatch type royal or sleb stories are are no consequence.
1987 hurricaine I was in a student hall block of flats, facing SW, with a very large flexing window. I hid under the duvet.

 

[mistyoptic]

2001 Bradford riots

I was in Leeds the night before, and remember the morning after someone shouting something at me outside a newsagent on the Sunday morning related to the events (which I didn't know about). I remember it as I later worked with someone involved on the Bradford side of the riot and their recollection was football hooligans has attempted to march on Asian areas and caused issues.

7 July 2005 London bombings

I remember a picture the day after I saw of someone travelling with a rucksack on the tube, they had taped a sign "I'm going to a Festival" on it. Then later not the event itself as such but I was in the area when the police raids in Leeds took place, it was quite shocking to me that 'local lads' could decide they want to do this.

7/7 I was in London at a conference. The MC came in to break the lecture and tell us all to go and phone home to tell our nearest and dearest we were ok.

Edit: we had a bit of trouble getting home that night. In the end we persuaded a taxi driver to take us from Elephant and Castle to Watford Junction and caught a train back to Stafford from there.

I can’t watch the documentary.

 

[Reynard]

9/11 - I was at my desk in my office on the 7th floor of the Imperial College mechanical engineering building, watching Sky News being streamed over the internet and discussing the events on IRC (internet relay chat) with some fellow members of a motorsport forum.

 

[Beebo]

One of the biggest disappointments was the Lifting of the Mary Rose when I was 7.
We had done a big school project and then the BBC broadcast the lifting live. The whole school sat down to watch this magnificent ship rise from the waves.
I remember the disappointment we all felt as a muddy lump of rotten wood slowly came up.
I think the whole thing was over sold to us.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

1987 hurricaine I was in a student hall block of flats,

Ah, a mature student

 

[stephec]

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

I have no idea where I was when the chicken died.

 

[wiggydiggy]

One of the biggest disappointments was the Lifting of the Mary Rose when I was 7.
We had done a big school project and then the BBC broadcast the lifting live. The whole school sat down to watch this magnificent ship rise from the waves.
I remember the disappointment we all felt as a muddy lump of rotten wood slowly came up.
I think the whole thing was over sold to us.

I've been to see that, early 1990s when it was being actively sprayed with water. You could stand very close to it. I've got an old VHS of the visit somewhere that I really should get around to putting onto a modern format.