Where were you when........

[Rain King]

48 minutes ago, Izzy said:

3. Diana - we were living in Hull and the wife walked in on me having a morning...

Not gonna lie, was worried where that was heading.

[jammie82uk]

When Diana died I had got up in the night to have tv on as wasn’t feeling well, just before I fell sleep I heard the bbc reporter saying She was fine and was being taken to hospital as a precaution, woke up to the news of her death 

 

for 9/11 I was off work as I had recently broken my foot and crossroads was on itv, it went to a advert break and never returned, watched the 2nd plane hit the tower 

[TiffToff88]

9-11... I was at Gatwick Airport waiting to board a plane to Tobago. Definitely not where you'd want to be when news like that breaks out!!

[Izzy]

11 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

When Diana died I had got up in the night to have tv on as wasn’t feeling well, just before I fell sleep I heard the bbc reporter saying She was fine and was being taken to hospital as a precaution, woke up to the news of her death 

 

for 9/11 I was off work as I had recently broken my foot and crossroads was on itv, it went to a advert break and never returned, watched the 2nd plane hit the tower 

Quite possibly the most surreal thing I've ever seen in my life. Pure disbelief.

[tom27111]

1 hour ago, Izzy said:

Good thread DavieG. Three external world events stick out for me:

 

1. 9/11 - remember it clear as day. Walking between meetings at work, got to my 2pm meeting and heard the news then we all stood watching the TV in disbelief

 

2. 7/7 - at a work off-site in Watford. The MD walked in after the morning break and told us what happened. Half of us (including me) had other halves working in London that day so he sent us all home. 

 

3. Diana - we were living in Hull and the wife walked in on me having a morning bath to tell me the news. I thought she was winding me up.

 

And two personal events:

 

1. Receiving the call from my wife when my father in law died - I was in the kitchen

2. Receiving the call from my wife when my mother in law died - I was in the kitchen again

 

Both times I was at home with the kids and the wife was working. Having to tell them both times was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Firstly @Izzy, let someone else cook and take showers instead of baths...

 

9/11 I was on the bus from town to Narborough. Heard someone on a mobile phone saying "this will start World War 3". Walked in to my girlfriends house to see the first tower collapse. 

 

7/7 Was working at Otis, next to the Space Centre. We had about 80 engineers in London. Had to account for them all. Phone networks were down. Possibly the most stressful day of my life. Thankfully, they were all fine. 

 

Princess Diana, I got home about 1am in my car. Hadn't been driving long. Heard on the news she'd sustained a neck injury in a car crash. My parents were on holiday. About 8am, my brother stormed in to my room and told me she was dead.

 

Strange how these things are so vivid. Remember them all like yesterday.

[Paninistickers]

Diana - was woke up, hungover, by my mum rushing into my room that Diana and dodi have been killed

 

9/11 - was in a remote french gite with my gf at the time and switched on telly whilst scoffing spag bol for dinner and had to slowly decipher what was going on in French.

 

Gary Speed death - I'd been at Alton Towers and was driving back on the A50 near those open prisons. Just sticks in mind, for some reason

 

Edit Gary Speed..I was on the A50 but had been for a cycle ride onthe tissington trail..not at Alton towers... details, details

 

 

Edited 3 November 2020 by Paninistickers

[Webbo]

It was a school day but I woke up early with indigestion or something so I got up about 6 in the morning, I turned the radio on to hear that John Lennon had been shot. 

 

Walking to and around school, so many kids were saying "who's John Lennon?"

Edited 3 November 2020 by Webbo

[Corky]

3 hours ago, Nalis said:

My dad wouldnt let me play football with my mate that Sunday morning as we should stay inside as a mark of respect. Such a crock of shit, he wasnt even a royalist ffs haha.

There was a Premier League match cancelled that day too- Liverpool v Newcastle.

 

9/11 and 7/7 I was at school for both, Year 7 for the first and Year 10 for the second. Surreal really.

[urban.spaceman]

Something hopefully a bit more cheerful than terror attacks or princesses or others dying.

 

Felix Baumgartner's jump from the stratosphere. Purely because it was just a normal Sunday afternoon, and we had all the close family around watching it live.

 

Two of whom have since died (in rather distressing circumstances). I just look back on that moment with joy, when everything was still normal, and the preceding 8 years of chaos in my life hadn't happened yet. I can still remember their reactions as we watched it. 

 

Perfect moment. 

[Costock_Fox]

Where were you all when we were going to appoint Preki though?

 

Can remember sitting at home watching a college football team announce their manager was going over to England.

[Captain...]

7/7 I was working in Poland

9/11 at a mates house watching Neighbours

Princess Di - in bed, Mum woke me up to tell me. I didn't care.

Brexit - At Glastonbury festival

[Sol thewall Bamba]

14 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

7/7 bombings whilst at secondary school.  Remember it going over the tannoy that anyones parents who worked in London had to go to reception to try and contact them. My mum had gone there with a Leicester College class she taught. Not a nice time.

I was meant to be on a secondary school trip to London a couple of days after 7/7 from memory. Obviously got cancelled, but I can vividly remember where I was when news was trickling through as no one had internet on their phones at that time at that age.

 

9/11 was hazy but I can remember watching the live news in my parents front room. 

 

I was on a packed nightclub floor when Whitney Houston was announced as having died, bit of a weird one to be announced by the DJ  

[RonnieTodger]

9/11 was round a mates house and his older brother thought we watching a drama series when the 2nd plane hit the tower

7/7 at Primary School

Brexit - heading to London to get the Eurostar for Euro 2016 with the worst hangover I've ever had

[Ollie93]

7/7 - was at secondary school. Remember rumours circulating school something had happened, then us all listening to intently to the radio on the bus on the way home.

[Fox92]

I can remember 7/7 as I was at secondary school then (probably about year 9 or year 10) but although I rememeber 9/11 on the newsin the evening I can't remember hat happened during the day as I was only 9 and in primary school.

 

When Michael Jackson died I was on holiday in America. Was strange.

Edited 4 November 2020 by Fox92

[Fox92]

15 hours ago, davieG said:

For me it was the assassination of John F Kennedy. I was at a young and impressionable age and he seemed like a breath of fresh in those heightened times of the Cold war, The Vietnam War and The Racial Tensions in the USA.

 

I was in the cinema on my own watching coincidently The Longest Day a film about the D Day landings, I'm slightly ashamed to admit I was actually bunking off from my College evening class because I was struggling to get to grips with it. Although in my defence it was a subject, Electronics I later found was completely wrong for me and involve 3 nights a week plus a Saturday morning whilst also doing an 8.00 to 5.00 week.

 

They actually stopped showing the film halfway though and closed the cinema. I can't imagine that happening today.

 

So this is something that sticks so strongly in my mind even after all these years.

Is JFK's assassination the biggest event in your lifetime?

 

I'd say 9/11 for me, even if I can't remember it fully at the time. It changed the World.

[Alf Bentley]

My "where were yous" for recent big events are dull. I was in The Clarendon pub, Leicester, for title win. I was at home for Diana & 9/11.

 

But on 9/11, I vividly remember seeing the second plane hit the tower live. It was initially unclear whether the first plane was a one-off attack or even an accident, but the scale of the event became clear with that horrifying, surreal moment of the second plane. But it was still unclear who had perpetrated the attack or what else might happen. I remember calling my parents (then living in N. London) asking them not to go into central London in case a similar attack happened there....

 

Some older, more exotic stories:

- 1984 IRA Brighton bomb at Tory party conference: Found out when I walked into Fontaine-de-Vaucluse youth hostel, Provence, where I'd previously been employed for 2 weeks whitewashing walls (gissa job, @Webbo!). I was told by Claude the warden, a brunette Asterix lookalike who lived with a bearded muscleman and a strangely beautiful dog named Pistou acquired in the Khyber Pass.

- 1990 England lose World Cup semi on penalties: Watched it in my mate's borrowed house in Sydney. It was about 6am Sydney time when Pearce hit the keeper's legs and Waddle skied his penalty over the bar. By then we were both drunk and downcast. A squabble broke out, I walked out to head home and my mate chased me up the road protesting just as dawn was breaking. Still good friends now!

- 1990 Overthrow of Thatcher as PM: I was lying in a shack with a roof made out of palm leaves out back of Man-Man's 5-Star Cook Shop (a slightly larger shack), Punta Gorda, Belize, where I was staying the night. Heard news on the radio. Surreal.

- 1991 IRA mortar attack on 10 Downing Street: Was walking through a street market in Cochabamba, Bolivia. A stallholder had a TV up and I saw news footage of Downing Street with lots of British bobbies swarming around, but the volume was switched down/off. I asked the stallholder if he knew what had happened and he told me that the British PM had been assassinated. This was pre-Internet and I found no radio news, so for 12 hours I mistakenly thought Major had been killed.

 

[tom27111]

Air disasters are other big events i remember.

 

As a child, I vividly remember the Lockerbie and East Midlands incidents, sat at home as a kid.

 

Those were the days when you'd get a newsflash.

 

In the days of 24 hour news channels, you don't see them anymore. 

 

I guess the next one would only be in the event of the queen dying.

[The Fox Covert]

9/11 I was in the Scottish Highlands bagging Munro after Munro. I had been camping in the back of beyond around Loch Ericht for five days. No phone signal, no contact with the outside world whatever except with the occasional other human being. And there aren't many of them in a part of the world where there are many times more deer, sheep and salmon than there are humans. I walked back to Pitlochry with my brother on Sunday morning and it was on Pages 1 to 10 of all the papers. We were probably about the last people on the planet to find out about it.

[ealingfox]

I was at Glastonbury when Michael Jackson died. When I first heard it I assumed it was one of those standard campsite rumours you get at every festival about a famous musician dying so dismissed it. Fast forward a few hours and someone's giving a tearful tribute on the Pyramid Stage, which is when I tweaked, even in my inebriated state.

[davieG]

5 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Is JFK's assassination the biggest event in your lifetime?

 

I'd say 9/11 for me, even if I can't remember it fully at the time. It changed the World.

Not the only one or necessarily the biggest but the 1st .

[lcfc old boy]

When  Ronald Reagan was shot, rock night Adam and Eve on a Monday dj  announced it ,silence fell over everybody after about ten seconds he said here's one from lynyrd skynyrd free bird 

[Durnerz]

7/7 coming back from Amsterdam the day it happened, never been searched so much in my life.

9/11 came back from school and was transfixed to the tv. 

 

[Jon the Hat]

9/11 I was studying for my finance exams in Shepherds bush.  Got a text from my sister.  When I left the course people were watching TV in shop widows by Shepherds bush green, stood there for quite a while.

[Blarmy]

November 9 - was at work and my mate rang me. Watched it on BBC news. When the first tower fell I was gobsmacked. 
 

Diana - woke up after a massive night out, still smashed, and my sister told me.

 

Senna - saw it live. Affected me more than Diana did.