Which news stories have stuck with you?

[PepperSteaks]

When I was a little girl there was a story in the news that I vaguely remember about a little girl standing on the Christmas tree lights barefoot and dying. I can picture what I thought the girl looked like so clearly all these years later and think about it often.
Do you have any news stories that you still think about?

So many things to Google now! 🙂

Celine Fugard - a French woman killed by a lorry driver and dumped in a layby on the A449. I had driven past the layby on my way home to my mum's just before she was found so it completely upset me that I had driven past this poor woman.

Figard

Lindy chamberlain the dingo baby case, and Susan Maxwell the Scottish schoolgirl who went missing. I remember watching the news everyday to see if susan has been found. Then I was in a toy shop and heard on the radio her body had been found. I was around the same age as her and it was the first time I realised children could go missing and never come back.

Also princess Diana death. And the herald of free enterprise.

Damilola Taylor :(

Also two young French men were killed in London a few years ago. Some thugs wanted their cash but when they went to the ATM their cards were declined, and the thugs tortured and killed them. So sad :(

Lord Lucan. I was about 7 or 8 and obsessed by that story.
Hillsborough....I remember watching that openmouthed
Fred and Rose West
Ian Watkins and his fall from famous rock star to sick child abuser while all the warning signs were ignored.

Oh and Kings X fire and 7/7, because I could have been caught up in either of them.

Oh and Jonestown massacre, I was 12 at the time.

And 9/11. We were on holiday in Crete and were staring at the TV in shock. The images of the planes crashing into the WTC and people jumping to their certain death.

Grenfell Tower, such an unnecessary waste of lives, just to make the area look prettier.

Edith Muhr- by all accounts he a wonderful woman who was tortured and murdered by a demonic farmer in France. She had been abducted whilst walking through his land. The story of her murder haunted me...I would lie awake in the wee small hours thinking of the pain she would have gone through. I would shake DH awake to ask him if he thought she would have passed out...I couldn't bear it.

Joanna Yates....she disappeared on one of the merriest nights for people. It was so heartrenching seeing the pain on her mum's face in the police appeal.

Just so many girls and women abused and killed across the world. I can't stand it.

Breaking news - babes in the woods case now has a conviction achieved. It won't bring those children back but HOPEFULLY the bastard won't get out ever! I REALLY hope so.

"Billie-Jo Jenkins. I desperately want to know the truth of who murdered her." Tbh we know we've just been unsuccessful in convicting the bastard!

Reading about Charlene and Lisa - which I'm shocked I don't remember I'm sure I would have seen it on the news. YET AGAIN their attacker was a KNOWN paedophile & kidnapped! Why THE FUCK are we releasing these monsters REPEATEDLY!

Just KEEP THESE UNREDEEMABLE BASTARDS IN JAIL!!

Mumsiedarling - while I agree that their crimes were horrific, the fact is they will NEVER be released, I don't agree with the death penalty and a comment made by one of those criminals is partly why - it'd be a relief for him! It's an easy out for these bastards, instead make them live in prison with the consequences of their crimes. But then I'd also make prisons (in U.K. At least) much tougher than currently. They also have to live with the disgust in the eyes of those who have to deal with them and the constant fear of being jumped - good!

A couple of posters seem to have not seen recent news - Ben Needham we now know what happened to him.

For me, surprising I didn't put in first post actually, NI issue related bombings. With dad in the army and us as children in the 70's/80's when these were happening a lot, I well remember having the awareness drummed into us and dad having to check the car every time. But as we're Irish descent my parents were also minded to point out contrary to the news bias at the time it wasn't JUST the IRA/catholic side doing this! And it wasn't just Protestants being killed.

Poppi Worthington - the people involved in that case that MASSIVELY screwed up should be prosecuted too. Appalling incompetence and lack of professional responsibility. But then we're STILL waiting for the arseholes who fucked up at Hillsborough to be properly dealt with!

Aside from the stories as a result of crime, Tommy Cooper's death has always stuck with me partly because I saw it happen on TV like millions of others. Like so many I thought it was part of the act then realised what had happened.

There are apparently clips on Youtube. I haven't looked. I don't want to.

Sarah Harper being abducted and murdered. She was about a year older than me and everyone became so much more protective of their children, especially girls. What also sticks are the deaths of people such as Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett, when I was in my teens. The fear and misinformation that existed about HIV and AIDS and the fact that it was once a death sentence whereas now it is treatable (though not detracting from how serious it is here). Such a huge advance medically. I also remember piper alpha, the herald of free enterprise, the marchioness, Lockerbie, London Underground fire, Dunblane and Hillsborough 😢

The Victoria Climbie case - she came from the Ivory Coast to live in the UK with her aunt and a couple of years later she was dead. The child was neglected systemically by those who should have looked after her.

Other stories - Shergar being stolen in Feb 1983 - hearing about it on the telly and one of my neighbours coming into our school to talk to us about the theft of Shergar as he had horses and had seen him weeks before his theft

The Irish ones that really affected me were Don Tidey kidnapping in 1983 as I was only really becoming aware of things going out in the bigger world.

The shooting of a garda in 1985, one of the murderers was from the same locality as I was, we shared a surname but weren't related (I have one sibling with the surname), it happened less than 15 miles from where I grew up and some of my mums relations lived in the area it happened in so told her about it and by default me,

The troubles in NI and hearing of bombs in various areas, 5 miles away from where I grew up in RoI took me into one area in NI which there was a lot of conflicts

DrCoconut

I well remember the AIDS crisis and the fear, it was very much a death sentence then.

There's a lot about living with HIV now and I'm grateful and amazed at the advances that have been made but personally I think we're too complacent now.

It's STILL a very serious condition, the meds don't work for everyone and have serious side effects themselves.

When I went back to uni as a mature student in early 2000's I was shocked how lax the attitudes to safer sex were among the younger students - many weren't even aware hepatitis can be sexually transmitted and is a dreadful condition to have. Whereas my generation had safer sex hammered into us!

Even on here I'm shocked at the number of mners having unprotected sex with fairly new partners - why is this?!

TheCountryGirl the Edith Muhr case got me like that too, that poor woman

Holly & Jessica - more than a news story for me, as I born and raised in Soham, and DH and I had been living with my parents in the town at the time of the murders. It will live with me forever.

The first major news story I can ever remember seeing, was the Challenger disaster, which happened when I was just over a month shy of turning eight. I will never forget that footage.

Other stories that will always stay with me are Hungerford, 9/11, 7/7, Dunblane, James Bulger, the Boxing Day Tsunami, and many, many others.

Dunblane. I was a teenager and I remember a class mate who'd been to the dentist telling us as he'd heard it in the car on the way to school. My 4 year old has just started school so I have thought about it this year and just how tiny and scared those poor children would have been.

The Ariana Grande concert. Those poor people having fun, so many young people died.

I have vivid memories as a child of the hunt for Jennifer Cardy, I suppose because it was local to me, although I'm not sure that I was aware that it was local, just that a little girl like me was missing, then her body was found.

The first big news story that I can remember was James Bulger. I was 7 at the time.

Nikki Allen. She wasn't much older than me when she was murdered, my first name is Nicola, which I think is why it's seemed to stick with me.

The IRA bombing of Manchester (I live in Greater Manchester).

9/11. Those pictures of the burning towers that I saw on TV when I got home from school that day will stay with me forever.

7/7. I went for an interview at Sainsbos on that day, remember seeing the news coverage on a TV in the staff area.

Lots of these stories haunt me too and a few I think about most weeks.

Caroline Hogg was the same age as me and not only did I live in Edinburgh at the time my dad was a local copper and had a lot of dealings with the case. My mum was so over protective with me growing up and blames it on that horrific crime. I remember getting a beautiful prawn from Santa the same year and wanting to walk down to my aunties who was just a few doors away, and which I had down many times before and not being allowed.

More recently I have read and heard some recordings of the Jonestown massacre and I don’t think I will ever truly forget the lullaby sound of that evil mans voice talking those poor women through poisoning and killing their babies and children or the sound of the crying while they were all in so much pain and then the crying gradually stopping.

Truly evil.

*pram

Graphista, I agree. I didn't want my previous post to become an essay but I hear my students talking a lot and they make out that STI's are something of a laugh or just a risk you take. Was definitely not like that when you were constantly told that unsafe sex could kill you. Hopefully we will see even more progress with HIV so that it becomes curable, I know some people still die prematurely from it. I guess I can see how my grandparents felt a bit, remembering when some things killed that are much more manageable now. They were far more worried about things like infections than people are now as they grew up pre antibiotics and saw people die from chest infection, childbirth complications etc. That said, this is another area where complacency is high risk.

Not so much a news story as such but when the story broke that wee alisha had been found dead on th isle of bute.

There was a picture on facebook above the headline and underneath alisha’s mother had written that’s my daughter, someone tell me what’s happened.

Poor woman found out her daughter had been murdered via facebook.