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Original poster

What were you doing when....

41 replies

beebeeduck · 22/05/2020 10:00

Pick an event in history, what were you doing on the date/near the date.

Mine:
John Lennon had just been killed and I went skating with my Dad. He liked Imagine and the DJ at the rink did requests so I asked them to play it for him.

OP posts:
Greenteandchives · 22/05/2020 10:02

9/11 I came out of uni after a lecture and rang my son to ask what he wanted me to get for his tea. He told me to put the radio on in my car.

Original poster
beebeeduck · 22/05/2020 10:06

*Greenteandchives How times have changed - now we'd find out in the lecture because of mobile data.

Chernobyl - on a small boat trip off the coast of Norway, we didn't find out for about a week.

OP posts:
Twospaniels · 22/05/2020 10:09

We had just arrived home from Scotland when we heard that Princess Diana had been killed. We walked i. The house and put the TV on and it was the first thing we heard.

9/11 Twin Towers. I was getting ready to walk to school to collect my children and it was on the news. Everyone at school was hurrying to get their kids and get home to continue watching the news. In total disbelief.

Cheeseycheeseycheesecheese · 22/05/2020 10:11

7/7 bombings in London.
Sat in my GCSE French class when my French teachers daughter came in (she was also a teacher in the school) to tell him as her husband worked in London, she was understandably distraught. The rest of that double period was spent listening to the radio.

1066vegan · 22/05/2020 10:14

Margaret Thatcher resigning. I was at work. She'd been PM since I was in my early teens. I walked around feeling that I was floating on air. It took a few hours for me to realise that the Tories were still in power and nothing would probably change.

CoxwellHuge · 22/05/2020 10:15

Waking up on the morning of my sons christening to find out Princess Diana had been killed.

SunKissed89 · 22/05/2020 10:17

9/11 I was in my first year of high school, came home and my dad already had the TV on in the kitchen while he was making tea (dinner/evening meal). It was on almost every channel.

NannyPear · 22/05/2020 10:20

When Michael Jackson died we were in the cinema. The movie stopped randomly for a few minutes, during which time someone had checked their phone and shouted to everyone the news.

Mammyloveswine · 22/05/2020 10:23

I remember getting in from school and watching the news and seeing the plane fly into the twin towers...

I remember watching princess dianas funeral.

We watched the queen mothers funeral instead of a maths lesson at secondary school.

HopeYouStepOnALego · 22/05/2020 10:34

Princess Diana - a neighbour called early that morning and I can remember standing at our wall phone (didn't have cordless phones in the house or own a mobile then) listening in disbelief at what she was saying.

9/11 - I had just started back to work after maternity leave and remember sitting in the office trying to search the information on the internet as it was happening.

7/7 - I had gone to the Hampton Court flower show and the first I knew was when my DM called me on my mobile checking if I was ok as she knew I was travelling through London that day.

Meruem · 22/05/2020 10:37

I was staying at a friends, sitting on the toilet, when she called through the door that Diana had died! Not the most dignified way of hearing the news!

devildeepbluesea · 22/05/2020 10:41

9/11 I was in Spain with my late partner. Remember watching the coverage in Spanish and in disbelief. The flight home was very different.

Princess Di - I was hungover and my dad told me!

7/7 working in London, they let us go home early. Took me over 3 hours to get home: on foot to river, on a tourist boat to Greenwich, under Greenwich tunnel, DLR to Canary Wharf, taxi from there to City Airport, bus home to Walthamstow. It was quite the journey.

justanotherneighinparadise · 22/05/2020 10:42

I watched 9/11 unfold on TV life whilst making a cat post for my cats and was cutting turf. I honestly didn’t understand what I was watching for quite a while.

justanotherneighinparadise · 22/05/2020 10:43

Oh yes and my mother work me up from sleep to tell me a Princess Diana has died!!!! I wish she’d just let me sleep to be honest as I remember crying a lot.

DelurkingAJ · 22/05/2020 10:48

7/7...getting off the tube at South Ken for work and DM called to say that she and DSIS (both working near Aldgate) has been kicked off their tube for ‘a gas leak’. As the day evolved I was so glad she’d got through. I walked from South Ken to Waterloo that afternoon and got on the train to my now DH’s parents house (he was on holiday and I’d woken him and he’d forgiven me for doing so!). My lovely DMiL provided me with clean clothing as I only had my work things (my flat was near Holborn and within the police cordon).

chunkyrun · 22/05/2020 10:50

I turned on tv to watch cartoons and it was all Diana. My dad said a privileged white lady had died.

9/11 I was in school and nobody told us. Saw a friend at the bus station and she told me.

Micheal Jackson, I was out in a local pub and a friend text me. Everywhere was playing Micheal Jackson

AgeLikeWine · 22/05/2020 10:50

Diana’s funeral : shopping in Sainsbury’s at Castle Marina in Nottingham.

GiveMyHeadPeaceffs · 22/05/2020 10:57

Elvis dying. My uncle told me and I was really sad because I thought it was Cliff Richard. In my defence I was about 5 years old.

9/11 I was in work and on a call with a colleague who out of nowhere asked if I'd heard about the twin towers, the way she said it I thought she was about to tell me a joke.

Dunblane. I remember sobbing while watching the news after I'd got home from school. It still really upsets me when I think about it.

I'm in NI and there's a number of murders/bombs that I remember really affecting me and my family.

PigletJohn · 22/05/2020 11:03

Diana died early on a hot Sunday morning. I got up about 6am and went to make some tea. Across the fields from my house was a place with flagpoles, and I noticed they had the Union flag at half mast.

I thought "oh, the QM must have died" and went back to bed.

On 9/11 I was holding an offsite meeting at a golf club. We had a teabreak and the clients went down to the bar. After half an hour they hadn't come back and I was rather irritated. I went down and they were all sitting around watching the TV. I tried to gee them up and somebody told me what had happened.

OculusThrift · 22/05/2020 11:06

Princess Di - my mum woke me up to tell me

9/11 - was lying on the settee on my day off from work. Phoned DH at work to tell him.

TheVanguardSix · 22/05/2020 11:14

OP, I remember John Lennon's death well! I was 8 and we were driving down the mountain highway CA-38, going home to Los Angeles after a weekend away in our mountain cabin. Mom was driving, radio was on, and we heard the news. I remember hearing it on the same stretch of road where my brother and I had previously argued over the song Funky Town (I loved it. He hated it.).

The shuttle disaster of '86. I was 13, running up the cement stairs of my middle school in California. Sunny day. Cloudless sky. The usual. Our school principal announced it over the loudspeaker and I think we had to stop where we were for a moment's silence, which is why I remember stopping on the stairs so well. The teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was part of the crew and this had a big impact on all of us. She was part of the Teachers in Space program. It all went so horribly wrong. I think I watched the explosion happen in real-time on the TV that morning before school (it exploded at around 8:30am PST). But I am not sure if this memory is accurate. What I remember so clearly is standing on those stairs underneath that blue sky and feeling so sad.

TheVanguardSix · 22/05/2020 11:17

I've just realised that Chernobyl happened a short time after the Challenger disaster. I have immersed myself in Chernobyl's history (I haven't actually watched the series and I should). But for some reason, I have no memory of what I was doing on the day.

ParkheadParadise · 22/05/2020 11:21

Dunblane
My nephew was born earlier that morning 13 March 1996. Dd and I went to the shops to buy a teddy bear and when we came back my mum was crying in the living room. Every year my sister always remembers and pays her respects to all those children and their teacher.

AmNot · 22/05/2020 11:29

9/11 I was working on a MH ward. My friend/colleague told me a plane had just hit the twin towers.

A lot of staff and patients went into the lounge to watch the breaking news in shock. A psychopathic patient memorably came in to ask for something and said 'I don't know why you all look so upset, it's not like you're on the 'plane or anything'.

madamy · 22/05/2020 11:36

Diana's death - was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with 2 other girls travelling after working on a summer camp. Thought the American boys we'd met were having us on - we woke up to it.

9/11 - at work on a ward - a porter told us and we thought he meant a light aircraft until we saw it on one of the side room TVs - everyone just stunned.

7/7 - at home with my 2 year old, planning a day out with another mum and her toddler. We decided to go local, I was heavily pregnant and there was a subdued atmosphere everywhere.

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