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

[K1092902]

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..

Aberfan, Prince Charles' investiture as Prince of Wales, and first man on the moon.

Also the miners' strike and associated power cuts.

I remember Dunblane, I was nine at the time.
Milly Fowler was one that stuck with me as she was a similar age to me.

Dowler, not Fowler

The first I remember at all was Rhodesia declaring UDI, I remember Ian Smith's big white slab of a face on TV. I had no idea what it was all about though.

The first one I understood was the 1979 election because there was telly in the morning (unusual) and i was allowed to watch (unheard of, usually i was allowed an hour of BBC only at 4pm.) I remember someone I later knew was a Dimbleby having blue cocktails for breakfast while Conservatives celebrated around him. For a long time I thought that grown up life was mostly like that.

I clearly remember the raising of the Mary Rose. I was 9. I think we had the day off school for it, because I remember watching it on telly as it happened, but I find it hard to believe school would give us a day off for that. Maybe I was at home because I was ill.

Strangely, Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative Party. We didn't even live in the UK - but my mother, who was a bit of a 70s early feminist, was very pleased a woman was being lined up to be PM. Little did she know how that would end up.

Waves to WandaOff. Some of these memories make me feel like Methuselah. 9/11 was this century! Most of the events referred to in people’s childhood have happened when I was an adult (hides in a cave)

I remember the Vietnam War vividly. Also, Virginia Wade winning Wimbledon in 1977. I remember decimalisation very well. We left the loaf of bread we had just bought in the bakery because we were fascinated by the new coins. Money maths questions were so much harder when I was at primary school because it was pounds, shillings and pence – 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound.

9/11 easily the biggest.

Diana is the other big one I remember.

Interestingly, I was born a couple of years before James Bulger :( and while of course I don't remember any news about it, I'd heard about it as a teenager. I mentioned it in passing the other day - alluding that it's one of the big reasons for the shift in attitude in the UK about children wandering around on their own/stranger danger and DH (same age) had never heard of him or the case at all.

We had a tree at our school with a plaque saying "In memory of the children of Dunblane" but I didn't know what that referred to until I was an adult and saw some news about it on an anniversary.

I have a distinct memory of being sat in the back of my dads cortina (passenger side!) and hearing on the radio that Freddie mercury had died.

After that it would be dunblane, than princess Diana dying

Fred West.

I had just started a new job and it was the talk of the office.

I have a vague memory of Charles and Diana's wedding I was 6/7 at the time.
I remember when i was about 10 my mum and step dad had friends round and I was banished to the kitchen watching the very grainy black and white TV. The news came on announcing the end of the miners strikes I ran in to the living room to tell them because my step brother was a miner at the time and got in big trouble for interrupting before I could explain what had happened.

Fall of the Berlin Wall when I was about 6.

Earliest - Probably Jamie Bulger - this sounds bizarre but you could read anything on ceefax in those days and I can't have been much older than 7/8 and obviously read too much. I remember being terrified.

After than Dunblane, Diana and 9/11 although I was at college for the latter. I also remember the Omagh bombing well, and also Freddie Mercury dying.

Charles and diane's wedding

I feel soooo old !

My mother took me out of school to go and see the colour film at the local cinema. We didn't have a TV in those days and even if we had it would have been black and white. I've never forgotten it. Staunch Republican now!

Queen's Silver Jubilee
Charles and Diana wedding
Elvis' death
John Lennon death

TBH I expect any report of James Bulger's death would have been terrifying to read :( There isn't really much you can sanitise about it. Poor, poor boy.

Ooh, OJ Simpson trial probably, or the Gulf War.

I'm currently 19.
Michael Jackson dying.
The tsumani in 2004, I remember collecting things in school for it.
The final Harry Potter book coming out.

I later knew was a Dimbleby having blue cocktails for breakfast while Conservatives celebrated around him

What? BBC political correspondents having a pro-Tory bias? I'm shocked I tell you! Shocked!

9/11 is the first proper media event I can remember!

Bradford disaster, chilling. I was around ten I guess.

Def wedding of Charles & Diana. I was 10. Watched it in a hotel on holiday. I was quite obsessed - - bought a souvenir brochure thing with all the photos in.