What is the first news story you remember?

[AmbsPhillps]

I think for me it was the 1999 champions league final

John Lennon. I was 3 and a half. My mum was making me beans on toast for lunch when it came on tv.

I went to get her from the kitchen. I didn’t know who he was but I knew he was someone important to her.

I remember it clear as day.

The death of princess Dianna.

The Hillsborough disaster. I was 6, I vividly remember the BBC news that evening showing it and the front pages of the papers showing the poor people crushed against the fence.
My brother and his wife lived in Hillsborough for a while and it was all I could think of when I visited.

titsmcgee I think we might be a similar age - all of those things I remember and when you watch those shows on telly about what the 80s/90s were like, it appears like it was end to end "big news" and we watched history being made. The 2000s has had its share of "big news" too but mainly terrorism related, not as many huge disasters as there were in earlier years, maybe because of improved systems in the wake of those tragedies. There haven't been many large scale murder hunts either, although the number of murders hasn't really changed. Its interesting to reflect on.

I remember the famine in Ethiopia very well. It seemed to me to go on for years. I was 6 or 7. I remember Zeebruge very well, and the Hillsborough disaster, but we knew people that were at that match. I seem to remember Charles and Diana's wedding but I googled it and I was nearly 4, so I can't have. I must be remembering videos and pictures from years later.

Princess Diana's death. I was 7.

My Dad was reading an article in a news magazine about what we now know is HIV/AIDS and saying to my Mum, "this sounds like an awful disease, the Drs don't know how to treat it and it's fatal." I was scared and asked him "what if I get it?" and he said "oh don't worry darling, girls can't get it" . . . because the article was reporting that only gay men were susceptible, as per the belief at the time.

Vague things like decimalisation, power cuts, early days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Vietmanese boat people, Pol Pot.

Specific events: the fall of Jeremy Thorpe, Harold Wilson resigning (until that moment I didnt know prime ministers could resign, I thought they stayed in office until voted out), death of Elvis. That last one really affected me as I already knew he was and knew his music etc.

The murder of little Sarah Jane Harper and then the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry.

Zeebrugge and the Kings Cross fire, both happened on the same year when I was 6

@Bluefargo

Zeebrugge

Same, because we were meant to be on it with people from my dad's work some of whom died

The Kings Cross fire.

It led to me being petrified of both fire and escalators for many years.

The Flixborough disaster

Fergie caught swearing in front of the press very shortly after she married Prince Andrew, which I think was before Zeebrugge - another early news memory...

Elvis Presley dying, I was eight. I recall it on the tv and all the mourners outside grace land on the telly. I didn’t really fully know who elvis was but I recall my father and step mother watching it snd discussing it.

James Bulger

Cuban missile crisis, that was very scary.

Moore murderers

Charles and Diana's wedding and the Falklands War. These are more "snapshot" memories, though. My first detailed memory of a news item, where I understood the significance was the Challenger disaster when I was 8. It all came back very clearly when we saw the Netflix documentary recently. I knew before they said that it had happened on a Tuesday as it was Brownies night and I was late because we were watching the news coverage.

According to my mother I was extremely concerned at the capture of Terry Waite in Lebanon when I was 6 years old. I do vaguely remember. Not sure why I focused on that so much!

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

I can vaguely remember my Uncles talking about the arrest of James Earl Ray at Heathrow.

The Zeebrugge ferry disaster. Just asked my daughter and she remembers coming home from primary school and watching live footage of the Iraq war.

@aprilshowers2015

The Hillsborough disaster. I was 6, I vividly remember the BBC news that evening showing it and the front pages of the papers showing the poor people crushed against the fence. My brother and his wife lived in Hillsborough for a while and it was all I could think of when I visited.

I must have driven through Hillsborough on average once a week for 20 years. It’s still all I think of. I didn’t even live anywhere near Sheffield (or Liverpool) at the time of the disaster.

Oh definitely the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. I remember watching it on TV!

Freddie Mercury dying, I was 6.