Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What is the biggest media event you can remember from your childhood??

504 replies

K1092902 · 28/07/2017 18:31

Mine is the death of the Princess of Wales. I was 12 at the time- Mum came and woke me and my sister up (much to her annoyance as she had been on a night out the night before) and told us it was important we watched as it was a huge deal. I can still remember sitting there that morning watching the news coverage. The next day mum took us to London for the day and we went to put flowers outside Kensington palace.

I didn't get it at the time but I was the same age as harry and honestly can't imagine having to live through my teens, getting married and having DD without my mum by my side never mind dealing with the pressure of royal life..

OP posts:
MauiBrideWithLemonDrizzle · 30/07/2017 02:57

Wichend Come to think of it I do remember the famine in Ethiopia. I remember the Bob Geldof Band Aid single coming out- parents bought it- I also remember a lot of "eat up all your food because people in Ethiopia are starving" (this being the 80s where it was a case of "sit there and eat it until it is all gone" no matter how lumpy that school mash/custard was)

MauiBrideWithLemonDrizzle · 30/07/2017 03:03

WhoreofBabyliss Spent my childhood feeling anxious and scared about global warming and acid rain (Whoever would have thought Blue Peter could be so damaging to my young psyche?) I also remember some PIFs about children being killed by electricity pylons and playing with old fridges. The 80s/early 90s were horrible depressing times to being a child.

I remember Thatcher and Major and recession looming but not so much through media but because of my father being out of work and hating John Major. My childhood was awful, looking back. I developed anxiety aged 7 and am on medication still in my 30s.

mylaptopismylapdog · 30/07/2017 04:47

Winston Churchill's funeral, I was very young but it still makes me very old! He had been so important to the country and my parents, a submariner and a nurse.

Pivoine · 30/07/2017 04:56

The death of princess di

ThinkOfTheHorses · 30/07/2017 05:06

9/11 - I was 6

leccybill · 30/07/2017 07:03

Italia '90 and the Barcelona Olympics in '92 were avidly watched in our house.

In fact, Barcelona is my favourite Olympics in living memory - the dancing fountains, Montserrat Caballe singing, Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell. There hasn't been one as good as that (for me) since!

NormaSmuff · 30/07/2017 07:57

moon landing, i can have only been 3 - we didnt have a tv in the country we were living in but it was headlines on the newspaper. my dad was telling me all about it, did we manage to see some sort of video? i have no idea.
then we went on a family holiday the summer of the silver jubilee
remember olga korbut too
watching Abba win Eurovision
The headline of the sun when Elvis died, The King is dead.
my dad, again, instilling in me that we were at war ie Faulklands
Charles & Di wedding
Band Aid

NormaSmuff · 30/07/2017 07:59

I had a CND badge as a teen and tried to join but the local group in the village were a bit grown up and odd not cool

MirandaWest · 30/07/2017 08:19

Charles and Diana's wedding - I was 5 and we haddock a party at school and wore red,white and blue clothes

General memory of children being abducted and killed. Don't know which ones but it seemed it was always happening.

Raising of the Mary Rose - all the infants watched it on a television in the hall at school.

Famine in Africa

Heatwave of 1984.

Hillsborough - a person in the year below me at school lost her dad :(

WhoreOfBabyliss · 30/07/2017 08:41

Maui Yes my basic nature is anxious and expecting the worse even though I try and have a sunny personality. My DMum kept nothing from us kids and I think it harmed us if I'm honest. My sis has been on AD's on and off all her life.

honeylulu · 30/07/2017 09:21

I was born in 1974 and I I can remember the winter of discontent and the Silver Jubilee. Not because they were "news" as such but because of what was going on at home. For the former my parents bought me a little yellow torch because I was scared of the power cuts. (I still had it until last year when I had a clear out - the battery compartment had gone all green and rusty!) For the Jubilee I can remember my mum hanging a commemorative tea towel in the front porch!
My mum always had the radio on in the kitchen. I am sure 1980 was the first year I was aware of there being a date iyswim.
My mum was a massive royal family fan and when Prince Charles got engaged she came and got me out of bed to ask if I wanted to see it on the news. I was very disappointed with Lady Diana because she had short hair! I thought all princesses had long hair. I also until that time thought all engagement rings had rubies in because my mum's did - I thought the sapphire ring was "wrong".I was a little girl with very fixed ideas!

Anyway roll on a few months and mum took us up to London to see the royal wedding parade. I was 6 and my sister was 3 - I am amazed now that she contemplated it. I was very grumpy from lack of sleep as we had to get up so early. Though several years later I found my diary and the most exciting thing about the day seemed to have been "we went out for lunch and I had COKE" (rarely allowed). We seemed to wait for ages in the crowd and we both kept whinging to go to the toilet. My mum later said her heart sank when she realised we would not be tall enough to see anything but at the last minute a policeman picked up me and my sister and sat us on the edge of a platform erected for disabled people. So we got a fab view (didn't have a clue who must of the people were though lol!)
I remember one of the horses bolting from the parade as they passed us. The guy came off and his bearskin hat fell off. He was only a young lad and was in tears. I felt so sorry for him. That bit was cut from all the news footage which we watched later.

Other primary school news I remember:
Heart transplants were still very new/rare. Each time one happened it would be on the radio and then daily updates on their condition. They always seemed to die. I used to wonder why they did heart transplants at all.
Raising of the Mary Rose - watched live on tv at school.
Miners Strike.
Shergar.
Ethiopia famine and Live Aid.

Secondary school:
Falklands war
Challenger
Zebrugge (lived on the Kent coast and people often went on day trips to France/Belgium or worked in the ferries do this was very close to home)
Kings Cross fire
Hungerford massacre
Lockerbie bombing
Bamber family shootings
Eniskillen and Brighton bombings (and other IRA attacks but those were the stand out ones for me).
Mrs Thatcher resigning. (I was in the 6th form and someone came running into the school library shouting "the mighty dictator has fallen!". Our headmistress had announced that morning that she was retiring through ill health and we first assumed the comment was about that and thought it a bit rude!)

honeylulu · 30/07/2017 09:23

Oh god and all the AIDS coverage - Don't Die Of Ignorance and the falling tombstone. Scared me shitless.

MargoChanning · 30/07/2017 09:28

Hearing about the death of River Phoenix on The Big Breakfast in 1993. Was the first celebrity death that really affected me.

BeautifulWintersMorning · 30/07/2017 09:29

I was born in 71 and i remember seeing on the news that a girl called Lesley had gone missing. I remember the silver jubilee.

BeautifulWintersMorning · 30/07/2017 09:33

I googled and it seems there were two girls called Lesley who were kidnapped and murdered in 1975. Lesley Molseed and Lesley Whittle

BeautifulWintersMorning · 30/07/2017 09:36

I think it was Lesley Whittle as it was a teenage girl i remember on the news
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30800357

alcibiades · 30/07/2017 23:40

The assassination of JFK. I was in my teens back then. I was in the kitchen with my mother and her hairdresser when my father rushed in from the sitting room with the news. Mother sniggeringly dismissed him, saying he was being silly and must have dreamt it. I had the double whammy of realising that a major figure could be assassinated, and also seeing a character assassination played out in my own home.

One of my most vivid memories of 9/11 was seeing the TV footage as I was passing by a Currys shop window and then going to my husband’s office nearby where I knew there was a TV in the basement. One of his colleagues came from Ireland, probably NI, and he was glued to the footage. That reminded me that no matter how huge an incident is, it will bring back memories for those who have experienced what might seem in comparison to be just a little thing. It’s not the size that matters, it’s the effect.

Smurfy23 · 30/07/2017 23:59

Hillsboro

Eifla · 31/07/2017 00:02

The first major thing I really remember unfolding is the 7/7 London bombings. I was in maths class at secondary school and the teacher put Sky News on his laptop and the whole class sat watching it!

I have vague memories of 9/11 too but remember not really understanding the scale of it, I was nine.

notangelinajolie · 31/07/2017 00:13

Princess Anne's wedding. We were the only house on road and all the neighbours came round to watch it.

notangelinajolie · 31/07/2017 00:14

*with colour telly

pamplemoussed · 31/07/2017 00:19

Elvis dying, Maggie T - 1st woman pm, Challenger space rocket exploding, Lord Mountbatten being killed by IRA.

RJnomore1 · 31/07/2017 00:23

Gosh. I was about 5 when chrRkes and di married. We watched but my mum went across the road to the neighbour with the colour tv and at night we all went to her friend with the ice cream van to watch the fireworks..

I remember John Lennon being shot clearly although I was 2 I think. I had beanscon toast for lunch and it was on the news. I went into the kitchen to tell my mum. I didn't know who we was but I knew she liked him in some way and he was important.

EmeraldIsle100 · 31/07/2017 01:27

The Pope's visit to Ireland in the 70's. Almost half the population, including me aged 11ish, went to see him.

I heard recently that the current Pope might visit soon. I don't think half the population will turn up though. I can't remember his name. At a guess I think it's Vincent. It is scarely believeable that we've gone from practically every single person in Ireland knowing Pope John Paul to not even knowing the current Pope's name.

Is it Francis?

Floellabumbags · 31/07/2017 06:35

I remember the silver jubilee, it rained in the trifle!

My biggest childhood TV memory was probably Live Aid. It was truly groundbreaking in terms of fundraising, political engagement and pushing the boundaries of live TV. And it was proper music, not like that Jayzee with his rapping nonsense Wink