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News stories from your youth that have stayed with you

140 replies

JabbaDaButt · 09/12/2025 19:19

Researching Meryl Streep films for a work quiz reminded me of the infamous Dingo took my baby case.
I was nearly 9 years old that summer but I remember it being all over the news and on the newspapers headlines.
So glad the parents were exonerated of their baby’s death eventually.

OP posts:
iSage · 09/12/2025 19:26

The miners' strike of 1984 - I had never seen anything like the footage of the picket lines. I didn't grow up anywhere near a mining area , it was a whole other world.

Beentheredonethat98 · 09/12/2025 19:26

Aberfan

YellowCherry · 09/12/2025 19:28

The James Bulger case.

ImWearingPantaloons · 09/12/2025 19:28

Yorkshire Ripper.
Genette Tate going missing.
Kings Cross Fire

feellikeanalien · 09/12/2025 19:33

Lockerbie bombing. We were driving home to Scotland from London for Christmas a few days after it happened. I remember the prayers for Lockerbie at the Christmas Eve service.

The miners strikes is another one and also the printers strikes. I remember going up to the Times offices in London for professional exam results. Normally they were printed in the night time edition of the paper and everyone would go and get them. Someone from the Times stood and read out the results. Unimaginable now with emails and social media.

MoonWoman69 · 09/12/2025 19:33

Yorkshire Ripper. I was 6 when Wilma McCann was murdered, then with the following murders in Leeds, it was like the whole city had an awful sinister blanket over it. My mum and my friends mum used to each stand at the end of the drive to make sure we both got home safe (from whichever one of our houses we'd been at). We didn't know who he'd target next after Jayne McDonald (16). Even as a kid (who was quite mature for my age), it was terrifying.

BlackSheepThisYear · 09/12/2025 19:35

Leah Betts - I remember seeing her photo on the newspapers and it has always stuck with me. I never took drugs because I was terrified of leaving my family behind. I hope her family know the massive positive impact they had by sharing her photo.

Lararoft · 09/12/2025 19:36

The Challenger shuttle explosion which I saw live on tv as a small child was very upsetting.

persisted · 09/12/2025 19:37

James Bulger.
I was in my early teens and had younger siblings. What stayed with me was news footage of people saying they had seen them, James was crying, and they assumed they were brothers and they were devastated.
I was often in that position, a 3 year old would want to walk to the corner shop with me and would have a melt down because I wouldn’t buy them sweeties. Then I’m coaxing/ carrying a small child home. So heartbreaking.

Twoshoesnewshoes · 09/12/2025 19:37

Johanna’s young - it was local to me, really sad

Lengokengo · 09/12/2025 19:38

Alfredo Rumpi, this Italian boy who fell down a well and was stuck down on a ledge. There were rescue efforts but they couldn’t reach him. It was featured on Newsround for several days, and he ended up dying.

JazzyBBBG · 09/12/2025 19:39

James Burger as above.

Stuart Gough - was local to me a boy who got kidnapped on a paper round.

Ethiopia.

Princess Diana's death.

GentleSheep · 09/12/2025 19:39

President Kennedy's assassination.
First moon landing and moon walk.
Cuban missile crisis.
Harold Holt (Aussie PM) going missing when swimming and never being found.

Beedeeoh · 09/12/2025 19:41

Concorde crash.

PortSalutPlease · 09/12/2025 19:41

Waco
Windsor Castle fire
James Bulger - I was exactly the same age as the killers and I just couldn’t understand how they could do something so terrible.

JabbaDaButt · 09/12/2025 19:42

I also vividly remember those missing posters on lampposts (yes, they really did exist in the 80s) of Susan Maxwell and Caroline Hogg, specifically as two of my school friends had those names.

OP posts:
classicslove · 09/12/2025 19:45

1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy. Flashed up across the screen on our black and white TV. I remember shouting upstairs to my mum that the president had been shot. I was 9.

RonaldMcDonaldTrump · 09/12/2025 19:48

James Bulger
Fred and Rose West
Louise Woodward's trial
Oklahoma bombings
Dunblane

ClassicBBQ · 09/12/2025 19:49

Holly and Jessica. I was the same age as them and lived about 20 miles away from Soham, so I was absolutely terrified. It was the first time I'd really understood that there were some evil people in this world.

Isthisright220 · 09/12/2025 19:49

BlackSheepThisYear · 09/12/2025 19:35

Leah Betts - I remember seeing her photo on the newspapers and it has always stuck with me. I never took drugs because I was terrified of leaving my family behind. I hope her family know the massive positive impact they had by sharing her photo.

Exactly this one - never done drugs to this day, likely because of this

VivienneDelacroix · 09/12/2025 19:50

Suzy Lamplugh (my mum worked for an estate agent and Suzy's disappearance changed the way they worked).

Kings Cross Fire

Challenger Disaster

Lockerbie

I don't know why, maybe it was because there were only 4 TV channels, so no escaping the news when as a child, but this things felt deeply affecting. Or maybe that's just how we perceive things as children. (Or maybe I've just become jaded and less affected).

Primroses62 · 09/12/2025 19:52

John Lennon being killed
Lockerbie
Leah Betts
Dunblane

HeadNorth · 09/12/2025 19:55

Dunblane - I was working in England and a colleague said - ‘isn’t your mum a primary teacher in Scotland?’. Not near my mum as it happens, but still a primary school in small Scottish town similar to the school I went to and the one my mum taught at. The thought of a shooting in this safe community was so unimaginable- it was so shocking - the whole of Scotland was in total disbelief. Thank goodness for the snowdrop campaign so it can’t happen again.

orangetriangle · 09/12/2025 19:55

the death of Elvis Presley
the presenter that went missing Gill someone O think
The Dunblane shootings truly horrific
the death of Princess Diana

letitallopen · 09/12/2025 19:56

James Bulger seems to have stayed with many of us. The Sleep of Reason is a brilliant book about this.

I also remember Dunblane and Fred West, although that was more because my dad commented disparagingly on them having a daughter called May when their surname was West; not really the shocking detail in that case Hmm