What is the first news story you remember?

[AmbsPhillps]

I think for me it was the 1999 champions league final

A fire breaking out in a tube station in London - was it Piccadilly? We aren't from the UK but had been in London a lot.

@isthisnothing
There was a very bad fire in Kings Cross station late 80s, caused in part by smoking (although banned on the tubes themselves still being allowed throughout the station) and poorly maintained wooden escalators, There was several fatalities as a result. Afterwards, smoking was banned throughout the Underground and the wooden escalators replaced by metal ones.

There was a smaller fire couple of years before at Oxford Circus, but nowhere near the same scale.

www.london-fire.gov.uk/museum/history-and-stories/historical-fires-and-incidents/the-kings-cross-fire-1987/

I think I will ask my 18 year old niece what her first memory of a news story was. She was about 5 when Madeline McCann disappeared and became quite worried that she would be kidnapped from her bed. I wonder if she still remembers that?

Falklands War was about the first time I was aware of anything that happened outside of my street . Dad read 2 or 3 papers each day and the front covers were plastered with it. I was terrified that the world was about to end.

Hillsborough Disaster/Berlin Wall falling. I was 6

Chernobyl

It was my birthday and I got a slide, I wasn't allowed to have it in the garden.

Yeah Kings Cross fire was spoken about a lot in our house too because we lived in London and it was so bad.

Jame Bulger I remember the adults all talking about it.

A few memories of the Orkney child abuse scandal as well.

I actually also remember watching the very first episode of eastenders and trying to wake my mum up off the sofa!

I think the reason the gulf war stands out so clearly is because the night war was announced my dad was rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis and one of the doctors accused him of making it up so he wouldn’t be drafted to fight.

Tanks driving across the desert (desert storm Iraq war I’m guessing)

The space shuttle Challenger disaster. We were watching it it live on TV

The search for Sarah Payne

Yvonne Fletcher

It was about the same time my brother told a neighbour when he grew up he wanted to be an IRA sniper
I don't recall the original revelations of the Profumo Affair, but it rumbled in and out of the newspapers through the 60's and 70's; I thought the sound of being a "call girl" and going to lots of parties was lovely

*Spidey66

• You're a spring chicken compared to me

A kid who fell out of the river rapids at Thorpe Park and (I think) lost an ear! I would have been about 4/5 at the time, back in the 80's

@StripyHorse

I think I will ask my 18 year old niece what her first memory of a news story was. She was about 5 when Madeline McCann disappeared and became quite worried that she would be kidnapped from her bed. I wonder if she still remembers that?

Ds2 was 7 when Madeleine McCann was kidnapped. A couple of months later we were about to go on holiday to France and ds asked if we could go to Portugal instead "to look for Madeleine because she must be missing her mummy". I remember being very shocked that he was so aware of the story.

JFK being assassinated- I was 8

@sharethegoodtimes

A kid who fell out of the river rapids at Thorpe Park and (I think) lost an ear! I would have been about 4/5 at the time, back in the 80's

That's the first story I remember reading in the paper myself! We were on holiday at the time and I sneaked the Daily Mirror into my room to read it in horror. Was scared of going on the fair for the rest of that holiday.

First news story I remember in any detail was probably the Ethiopian famine or maybe the murder of Sarah Harper (remember seeing her mum crying )

Death of Elvis, the Silver Jubilee, the Montreal Olympics and strikes in the 70's all sort of merge for me.

Winston Churchill's funeral. I was only 3 but I remember sitting round the black and white television with my parents and Grandma, who was crying, and seeing the coffin go down the aisle.

Aberfan

9/11 I was 8. Terrified me from watching the news for years

The Challenger exploding.

The hilsborough disaster

I'm surprised an 8yo would understand enough of the footage of 9/11 to be scared off watching the news. I was 13 when it happened but it didn't really affect me until 10 years later. I couldn't grasp the scale of it when I first saw it. It just seemed like any other bomb/plane crash/disaster.