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

[figbat]

Mustn't forget the Ash Cloud.

We'd just arrived at Schiphol, for our flight back to East Midlands, when the departure boards all change to "Flight Cancelled"

My, that was an interesting day...

Eyjafjallajökull (I made a point of committing it to memory as it interrupted my life and I later went there when I was in Iceland).

I was in Singapore on a business trip. I was supposed to leave on the day it erupted and caught wind of issues with flights. One by one my colleagues’ flights were cancelled but mine was OK. Finally mine was also cancelled and I found myself in a difficult situation. I extended my hotel stay for a couple of nights but then they had no room for me and I had to check out. The corporate travel agency that I used hunted all round Singapore and found that all hotels were full because people were still flying in and stopping over and were unable to fly on to Europe.

I eventually ended up in a room on Sentosa Island - a Universal resort type place.

I then dedicated all of my time to getting home. I was on airline websites continuously. I found a train route that went from Singapore to Europe via Russia. I found options for passenger fares on container ships. Eventually the skies started to open up and the travel agent called me and gave me three hours’ notice to get to Singapore airport. I wasn’t even packed but as I was still on the phone to them I was chucking things in my suitcase.

Then began a 30 hour continuous journey to get home. Each leg was taken without knowing what happened next and as soon as I landed I called them to find what the next option was.

In the end I flew from Singapore to Doha, then to Athens, then to Amsterdam and as I landed in Amsterdam the first flights opened to the UK. I expected the flight to be rammed but in fact it was barely a quarter full but I eventually landed at Heathrow to be met by my heavily pregnant wife. She had already had to travel to Heathrow earlier on to collect my car from the long stay parking and then come to get me.

So yeah, Eyjafjallajökull.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

9/11, was on a train from Glasgow to London Euston, worked by 87020 'Sir Winston Churchill' and along since forgotten DVT.

We must have been somewhere in Cheshire/Staffordshire when it happened.

We arrived at Euston, travelled across central London (Underground, sorry, I can't remember the exact type) and got to our destination (Bexley in Kent) in a class 465 or 466 'Networker'.

It was only then that we heard...

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Challenger (1986)... I was 4. I saw it on the news and the strangely shaped exhaust plumes scared me.

Piper Alpha (1988)... I just saw it and didn't think much as I didn't know enough about it, but I knew it was serious.
I was on holiday in Mull at the time.
I was 6.

Lockerbie (1988)... My Uncle was part of Strathclyde Police, so was sent down.
I remember being mildly fascinated and scared of it, because I was 6.

Glasgow Garden Festival... WayHAY!! (1988).

Seoul Olympics 1988... A woman fell down on the running track, rolled about a bit and everyone lost their minds.

Berlin Wall (1989) - Knock the thing down, it's a wall, what's the problem? 🤣🤣🤣
I was 7, go figure.

Etc etc

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Southall train crash?

We had flown to Heathrow enroute to Zurich and took the then new Heathrow Express (class 332) into Paddington and back.

That was the 1st of October 1999.

Southall happened on the 5th

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Princess Di?

I was going to the 1997 Bo'ness railway summer diesel gala and was stood eating a bacon roll when I heard on the radio.

I thought it was some sort of sick joke at first

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Hillsborough... I didn't even compute the problem, it seemed too abstract to me.
People were crushed? Why did they not just get out the way?

I was confused.com

I was 7

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Nelson Mandela?

People kept on saying 'We have no idea what he looks like'

I was expecting someone to walk out and everyone miss it, like they were the cleaner or something 🤣

I was about 8.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Same with the Kings Cross fire, I simply could not compute it.

Why did they not just run out?

I was 5

 

[glasgowcyclist]

9/11

At work in the office. No radios were allowed but I had mine on in the drawer with headphones in. When the first plane hit was announced I just thought bad luck/accident, then when the second was reported I realised it was likely deliberate. I mentioned it to our TL and he said we could all listen to it, so we did.

The Sayeret Maktal raid on Entebbe airport.

Can’t recall.

The Lockerbie disaster.

I’d been out at a club, so missed the news reports.

Elvis dying.

It was during the school holidays. I also remember it for being the same year that my dad died, as did Groucho Marx and George the giraffe.

 

[Gwylan]

Cuban missile crisis? When we all went to look over the edge.

At school German lessons. Hr Ings told us that if we could explain the situation, in German, the class would be paused at whatever time the ultimatum ran out.
I remember we were in a music room a sad and soulless room with a dead upright piano parked at an odd angle near the front. Smelt of wet recorders.

The desks and chairs were lower school and too small.
The other thing was that I was rubbish at written German but could blag the spoken because of my vocabulary.
Head boy went in to bat and made a total cods of it. That special English way we have of strangling foreign languages.
I sat on my hands and writhed inside.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Cuban missile crisis? When we all went to look over the edge.

At school German lessons. Hr Ings told us that if we could explain the situation, in German, the class would be paused at whatever time the ultimatum ran out.
I remember we were in a music room a sad and soulless room with a dead upright piano parked at an odd angle near the front. Smelt of wet recorders.

The desks and chairs were lower school and too small.
The other thing was that I was rubbish at written German but could blag the spoken because of my vocabulary.
Head boy went in to bat and made a total cods of it. That special English way we have of strangling foreign languages.
I sat on my hands and writhed inside.

Sorry, wet recorders? 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Gwylan]

Sorry, wet recorders? 🤣🤣🤣

The sad smell of music rooms.