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

[Accy cyclist]

When Princess Diana died I heard it on the alarm clock radio next to our bed. If I remember rightly I first heard the 'breaking news' about 3am, about her being in a car crash when I said to the then Mrs Accy "Oh, it'll be a broken finger or something". When I woke about 10am I turned the same radio on to hear she'd died, which was quite a shock to say the least.

 

[stephec]

Holyhead open again @classic33 . I was watching the Beeb when they announced that.

I read somewhere that they were thinking of early February, so they've either done well, or deliberately overstated it to make themselves look good. 😂

If I do go it's to Sligo, so I could always do Cairnryan if needed.

 

[presta]

I seem to have been sat watching the telly when pretty much all of these things happened.

Same here for most things in general.

When Princess Diana died I heard it on the alarm clock radio next to our bed.

Now you mention it, me too. I'd been thinking it was whilst I was sat at the dining room table planning walks with an OS map, but that was Jill Dando.

Elvis was when I walked into the kitchen and my father handed me the morning paper.

The 1997 storm was when I was driving over a carpet of leaves and twigs thinking "hmm, this seems a bit windy".

 

[biggs682]

All the great and significant moments of modern history.

9/11.

The Sayeret Maktal raid on Entebbe airport.

The Lockerbie disaster.

Elvis dying.

Neil Kinnock falling over on the beach and getting wet.

Where were you when history's key moments occurred, and what were you doing?

I was in an off licence when Elvis died

I Was driving to Swindon on the morning they announced Princess Di had been killed

I was working in Daventry when 9/11 was announced

 

[Dave 123]

The moon landing- I was 3 days old and more interested in eating, crapping and crying. Very little has changed.

Elvis- a few days after he died I asked my mum “hey mum, how can he be on the telly if he’s dead? Made perfect sense to me.

9/11 I’d just been cutting yew hedges at West Wratting Park. The chauffeur came up, laughing, and then told us. His stupid reaction still stays in my mind.

24/4/85 Goodison Park
Everton 3 Bayern Munich 1

I was in the enclosure, pitch side. I can still see Trevor Steven put it in the net.


View: https://youtu.be/UtZyEvdDhMU?si=FVmJAD3Tx3A7VrvM

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

All the great and significant moments of modern history.

9/11.

That’s one I can recall.

I was in a hospital equipment maintenance workshop in the west of Scotland. There was me and one other person that , despite moving in very different directions, still work together today on a national scale. I was sitting to their left. News came on the radio of the first tower being hit and we both exchanged glances and commented about what an accident that had been.

Then news came through a few moments later of the second tower being hit…….

 

[mikeIow]

9/11
Sitting in reception at News International near Canary Wharf waiting for a meeting.
Screens all over the walls.
Suddenly showing the horror of the first tower 😳
Colleague & I knew our meeting was about to be cancelled.
Walked back to the tube wondering whether this was just the US or a global thing that means we should be concerned travelling home. The world changed.
Horrible day.

Diana.
Flew to Istanbul to give a training course for a week on the Sunday after hearing the news.
The English-speaking paper was full of it all week.
That, & a story about how all PSVs would have to carry body bags. Unrelated, but after the taxi from the airport, it made sense. That story continued until the end of the week, when it turned out a Government official was being bribed by a body-bag manufacturer 🤣

US Embassy Nairobi bombing….
A bit left field, perhaps, but I was out with work a few days later, & it turned out our offices were next door.
Windows blown in, rubble everywhere, it was a sombre feeling about town.

Just to add to my Nairobi adventures….
TWA Flight 800
Also out there the day this happened.
Was staying in a high floor in the round Hilton in the city centre….the only English Channel spent a long time just playing a roll-call of passengers who had died.
Upgrading computers overnight, with a guard at the bank with what looked like an AK47 made for a cheerful few days….

 

[wiggydiggy]

The moon landing- I was 3 days old and more interested in eating, crapping and crying. Very little has changed.

Elvis- a few days after he died I asked my mum “hey mum, how can he be on the telly if he’s dead? Made perfect sense to me.

9/11 I’d just been cutting yew hedges at West Wratting Park. The chauffeur came up, laughing, and then told us. His stupid reaction still stays in my mind.

24/4/85 Goodison Park
Everton 3 Bayern Munich 1

I was in the enclosure, pitch side. I can still see Trevor Steven put it in the net.


View: https://youtu.be/UtZyEvdDhMU?si=FVmJAD3Tx3A7VrvM

It's a big 'What If' to me that the Everton team of the mid 1980s never really got to compete in Europe regularly (due to the ban following Heysel).

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

9/11 I was unemployed - had just been made redundant

I had planned to start an M.Sc. course at Bangor University - I lived just up the road from it - starting October 2011
but it was cancelled with only a few weeks to go - which was annoying because I had pretty much stopped looking for a job because of the course and if the course didn;t run my arrangements for benefits and grants stopped with it
SO I went to the university library to use their computers and resources to look for a job
WHile I was there one of the librarians came through and I heard her say to one of her colleagues "they’re flying planes into building here" - I just assumed it was some sort of stunt show they had on a telly
Then I got home and saw the news!!!

Y2K - I was an IT specialist at the time and had done a lot of work on Y2k over several years so I was "on call"
but, for complicated internal political reasons, I wasn;t in work so I went to my mother-in-law's house with my partner and daughter for the New Year
I was rather nervous in case of getting a phone call
but I remember midnight - the only time we deliberately woke my daughter up at night (she never slept properly until she was about 3) because the fireworks were so loud she would wake anyway and she shouldn;t miss them.
Didn;t get a phone call because everything went like clockwork - exactly as planed
(well almost - but that only became clear in March and no-one found out!!!)


Diana was weird - I went down to get a Sunday newspaper - as usual at the time - and didn't really look at the headlines - just noticed that they were all about "Princess Di"
I got the only one that had other things on the front page so we would have other news and not just the normal "oh didn;t she look lovely" fashions and gossip stuff

That paper was probably the last one sold with nothing about the car crash!!!

only found out a few hours later when we put the telly on!!!

 

[Gwylan]

The moon landing- I was 3 days old and more interested in eating, crapping and crying. Very little has changed.

Elvis- a few days after he died I asked my mum “hey mum, how can he be on the telly if he’s dead? Made perfect sense to me.

9/11 I’d just been cutting yew hedges at West Wratting Park. The chauffeur came up, laughing, and then told us. His stupid reaction still stays in my mind.

24/4/85 Goodison Park
Everton 3 Bayern Munich 1

I was in the enclosure, pitch side. I can still see Trevor Steven put it in the net.


View: https://youtu.be/UtZyEvdDhMU?si=FVmJAD3Tx3A7VrvM

Moon landing, I was in my second year at uni.
We watched it on the big TV in a Physics lab.

 

[grldtnr]

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

I was doing the End - to end, going north, was very wet, and a bit dodgy, when it struck ,we were in the Welsh borders, but at least it was going our way !
Had just crossed a bridge ,when the winds tore the roof of the pub and smashed into the river,
We hadn't planned on stopping.

 

[cookiemonster]

When Princess Diana died I had just got out of the shower and I was pulling clean underwear on.

I stopped at knee height when I heard the news as the radio was on at the time. Just stunned at what had happened.

9/11. I'd just landed in Helsinki from Edinburgh on a Finnair flight when I saw on the TV screens at the airport planes smacking into the Twin Towers.

 

[mr_cellophane]

I was at Boys Brigade when JFK was shot. My parents told me when I got home.

9/11 I was at work. The only TV was in reception and I was walking though when the security guard showed us. We stood the watching as the towers fell. The company had a office in one of the towers and a friend was on holiday in NYC. We didn't hear from her until she got home.

Kings Cross fire I worked next to St P and caught the first Circle line train to stop there the following day. I won't forget the smell of burnt stuff. Watched the funeral of Colin Townsley as it passed the station

Moorgate crash - My father was taking me to Gatwick, usual way back then from North London was A10, Old Street, Moorgate, London Bridge. Found out while I was away that the father of two girls I used to go to school with was in the first carriage.

1987 Hurricane - I was asleep and my wife and I couldn't understand why so many people couldn't get in to work.

 

[Dogtrousers]

1987 hurricane I was living in the states. I got a letter (how quaint) from a friend with photos (on photographic paper!) of devastation of the woodland where she lived in Kent.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Good to see all the alibis coming in