Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Flip

1 2

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:

Defender90 · 22/05/2020 11:40

The Dunblane School Massacre.

Was in art & design class at school, the teacher always had the radio on.

1066vegan · 22/05/2020 11:42

Dunblane

It was parents evening and I was teaching a year 1 class that year. One of the parents came in for her appointment and asked if I'd heard what had happened. The thought of anybody doing something so terrible to little children like the ones in my class was so shocking.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/05/2020 11:43

When I heard Elvis had died I was in bed listening to John Peel.
I saw a headline at a newsstand saying John Lennon had been shot while on a lunchbreak.
Woke up to a very solemn Radio 4 when Princess Diana had died.
Heard about Dunblane when mid-day supervisors came into school at lunchtime.
I think I heard about 9/11 the same way.

princessspotify · 22/05/2020 11:44

@ParkheadParadise my dsis was born 11th March 96 and my mum lights a candle every year for those poor children and teacher

ActuallyItsEugene · 22/05/2020 11:48

7/7 definitely.

I was on the way to Brent Cross shopping centre and heard it on the radio.
Drove home whilst trying to get a hold of my dad (he was a taxi driver.)

One of the scariest hours of my life. It felt like an age before he walked through the door.

CouldBeOuting · 22/05/2020 11:57

9/11 we were on holiday, went into a shop and thought the radio was playing a drama at first then someone said there was a TV in the nearby tea shop so we all went over and watched this awful thing happening on a small black and white telly perched on the counter....... DD was 3 so we tried to make the rest of the day / week normal for her.... we go back to the same place frequently and always remember that day....

Sn0tnose · 22/05/2020 12:46

Princess Diana - my mum woke me up to tell me and I remember being annoyed with her because I’d been out on a raucous hen night the previous evening and was very hung over.

9/11 - I’d finished an early shift at work in the next town over, had caught the train home and was in an art supplies shop when it came over the radio.

The hurricane of 1987 - my mum woke us all up in the middle of the night as we had huge bedroom windows and lots of tall trees outside. She made us get up and dragged our mattresses downstairs to sleep in the kitchen, where my little brother topped and tailed with me and spent the next four hours pulling my duvet off my shoulders and over his head.

blancheduboiss · 22/05/2020 13:01

I distinctly remember we were driving back home after a day trip to Skegness when the radio blurted out that Michael Jackson had died. Will never forget that.

spikyplants · 22/05/2020 13:04

Princess Di death - was on holiday in Dublin with my ex, heard on the radio during breakfast. Everyone was silent.

9/11 - started my PM shift in work, Mark and Lard were on the radio. They mentioned what had happened. We all looked at each other. By our evening break we were glued to the TV in the breakout area again in silence.

7/7 - just before it I remember moaning because work wouldn't let me take leave at this time. Last minute deadlines. I was supposed to be going to London for a long weekend and staying near Russell Square.

Crikeyblimey · 22/05/2020 13:14

Lockerbie air disaster - I worked a local newspaper at the time. We’d all been on a night out and got changed to go out in the office. Late that night we went back to the office to collect our ‘day clothes’. Thought it was really odd that the printing staff were in at that time of night (we were an evening paper). Turned out they were printing a special edition to report on the crash.

happypotamus · 22/05/2020 13:15

Princess Di - came downstairs on a Sunday morning and my brother who was about 4 told me. He had been watching tv as kids do early on weekend mornings. I told him not to be so ridiculous!
Dunblane - my mum picked me up from school and had radio 4 on in the car. That was also unbelievable
9/11 - woke up late as it was the summer holiday from university, turned on radio 1 and chris moyles was talking about it. Went downstairs and put the tv on.
7/7 - was waiting at a train station (had seen R.E.M. in concert the night before) when they announced all trains to London were cancelled due to power failure (wasn't travelling to London), all the people on the platform rolled their eyes at that. When I got home my boyfriend told me what had happened

Spidey66 · 22/05/2020 13:17

7/7. Travelling (or attempting to) to work by tube. Mass confusions when the whole system came to a standstill. My mum and husband trying to get hold of me to see I was safe but all the phone networks down. Internet crashing because of all the hits. Terrible, terrible day for Londoners.

NotKeenOnSwede · 22/05/2020 13:25

I was literally googling how many days is it until Michael Jackson comes to the UK because I was such a massive fan and was so excited. Had Sky News on in the background... then it came on that he'd been rushed to hospital.

I cried all weekend.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/05/2020 14:34

Hurricane of 1987 - I lived in London at the time and woke up to mud all over the windows and no power so no TV or radio. I walked to school (teacher) through an eerie end of the world scenario past fallen oak trees and no traffic. When I got there the caretaker declared the school closed for the day.

shookbelves · 22/05/2020 14:53

I was on a day trip on a coach with my mum, and on the journey back home from the seaside, the coach stopped at a service station where people told us all that Elvis Presley had died.

KenzoBaby · 22/05/2020 15:13

Dunblane age 13 - our Geography teacher told us "some maniac has killed a load of kids just down the road from here".

Princess Diana - my dad woke me up to tell me. I remember my mum crying at the funeral when she saw Prince Harry's card saying "mummy" as me and my brother were similar ages to him and William.

9/11 I heard it on the radio as I was getting ready to go down to the bank to open a student account. I phoned my mum's mobile to tell her. In the bank, I heard a lot of people on the phone to relatives telling them not to board flights.

7/1 working as a secretary, I heard on the radio we had playing that there was "signal trouble" on the London Underground. We somehow knew already that was a cover story.

Flip

1 2