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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What are the news story’s you will never forget where you were at the time.

331 replies

Blueyparentsmychild · 13/04/2024 15:21

just that really,

mine will always be 7/7 - was caught up in it
grenfell tower - lived locally
9/11
Manchester bombing
probably the queens death to.

OP posts:
Blueyparentsmychild · 13/04/2024 16:32

7/7 defo changed my life
I was in secondary school so still quite young and I was running late for school
my parents were actually away so i travelling through London to get to school.
I wasn’t on the train or the bus but I was locally and travelling and the chaos was insane. I remember the panic and I didn’t know what to do or where to go I couldn’t get on another train and then the bus happened and they went down to and everyone was frantic at this point. I didn’t have a phone. I was terrified, I ended up going to a Green area and climbing up on a tree - I have no idea why 😅 eventually a couple helped me and I managed to get collected by my English teacher. I remember getting back to school and my head teacher being giving me a hug before reminding me about my lateness 😂😂😂
I remember for a while I was very nervous about travelling and was on a bus and would freak out and get off.

OP posts:
Somatosensational · 13/04/2024 16:33

For some reason I don’t really remember anything about the Queen’s death in the news 😳

JudgeJ · 13/04/2024 16:33

x2boys · 13/04/2024 15:47

I was living in Eccles and was a student nurse when Manchester was bombed in 1996 my sister was in Manchester that say catching a train back to her university and were all Evacuated for a " controlled explosian"
It was a miracle nobody was seriously hurt !
As awful as this sounds it was the making of the Manchester City centre we have today, they were forced to rebuild it.

I was in a building on Eccles Old Road and we heard the bomb go off but thought it was a speeding lorry hitting a bump in the road at first.
I am old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination, I'd been out and as I walked in my brother said excitedly Someone's shot Kennedy. I said it'll be a flesh sound but my dad said I think it sounds serious and at that moment the announcement of his death came on. Next day I was doing my Saturday job but the customers were constantly bursting into tears, it's hard to imagine now that reaction to the death of a politician but he seemed so glamorous, I heard the word charismatic for the first time about him.

DimplesToadfoot · 13/04/2024 16:35

Princess Diana's death, It was about 2am. I was drunk as a skunk and queuing to order a kebab. When it came up on the security/entertainment screen, instantly sobering :-(

feellikeanalien · 13/04/2024 16:36

Lockerbie - I was driving back to Scotland for Christmas a few days after it happened and remember driving past Lockerbie.
Diana's death.
Invasion of Iraq. I remember DP had the the TV on all day.

9/11
Madeleine McCann. I was living in Portugal at the time and was pregnant with DD so it struck a particular cord.

olivebranch31 · 13/04/2024 16:36

9/11
Michael Jackson's death
Obama as president
MH370
Paris terror attack
First covid lockdown
Queen's death

Goldenboysmum · 13/04/2024 16:39

Elvis, was in my bedroom playing Elvis records when a neighbour came to tell me (lifelong Elvis fan)

Lockerbie, at a friend's house.

Princess Diana woke up to the news, but had been out so i knew she has been in a a car accident.

Dunblane, at work.

Amy Winehouse, at my inlaws caravan.

Grenfell, driving to work and the news came on the radio.

9/11 at home, youngest was only a few days old. (I think this event was the most traumatising thing I ever watched)

I remember most of the other events mentioned, but not where I was at the time.

Purplebunnie · 13/04/2024 16:39

Aberfan - when it happened I was the same age as most of the children
Dunblane - eldest DC is the same age as the children murdered, I drove home so fast from work to get to the nursery to hug her
Diana's death - on holiday camping
September 11 - at home watching the news. Watched the first plane. There are days when I look at the sky and it is that same blue

Quebeccles · 13/04/2024 16:40

Lots of the ones already mentioned. On 7/7 I’d just finished a night-shift and walked back to Euston station not knowing what had happened but seeing all these people walking and looking weirdly unsettled and wondering what was going on. Then got to Euston and it was closed - eventually ended up back at the office where someone put a TV on and we learned the news.

Also, the Lockerbie bombing - it was very close to Christmas and I’d come back to spend it at home with my parents. We were watching TV and I was sitting on the floor wrapping presents when these scenes of utter horror came on. I’ll never forget that. It’s so clear in my mind's eye.

ManchesterLu · 13/04/2024 16:41

9/11, Diana's death and the Queen's death. I can also remember where I was for 7/7 but it's not as strong a memory so perhaps that will fade with time.

LauderSyme · 13/04/2024 16:42

In my living room with my mum when the IRA bombed a car outside Harrods in 1983.

Working in a nightclub and hearing from a colleague that Diana had been in a car crash and then later hearing that she had died.

Working overseas when 911 happened and, like a pp, turning on the TV in time to see the second plane crashing into the second tower. The only English speaking TV channel we had was CNN, and I was glued to it for the next few days. Usually there was more advertising than news content but they stopped showing any adverts for a while.

I watched Dubya's 'shock and awe' attack on Iraq on CNN too.

AtomHeartMotherOfGod · 13/04/2024 16:42

The main ones I remember:

Raising of Mary Rose
Challenger disaster
Diana's death - Mum woke me, upset, early on Sunday to say. I remember people gasping during the intercessions in church, as they hadn't heard.
9/11 - driving home after work was hard; I kept crying.
7/7 - this was like a dream as I was going to work in London and I was hearing people talking about the Tube being shut for innocuous reasons, then a mention of bombs. I just remember being really untroubled, thinking it was probably all fine and switching to DLR to get into Canary Wharf. I called someone on the journey - my boyfriend or mum, I forget - and got into work as usual, then saw the awful images coming through on the news and realised it could have been so much worse.

There have been awful events since then but they haven't shocked me to the core (or amazed me in the case of the Mary Rose) as much as those did. It's weird - later ones have made me worried or upset, but the place I was when I heard hasn't stayed with me in the same way as those from earlier in my life.

aSpanielintheworks · 13/04/2024 16:43

Freddie Mercury's death, The Boxing Day Tsunami, the Twin Tower attacks, and the day Boris plunged us all into Lockdown.

teenagetantrums · 13/04/2024 16:48

Diana's death because l was up feeding a baby watching 24 hour news when story broke, no Netflix or prime in those days.
Elvis dying my dad showed us frount page of paper over breakfast.
9/11 as l was at work in London my ex phoned and told me about it. Office shut shorty after as rumours planes were heading for London.
7/7 l had just to work when ex phoned me in a panic, l used to get off tube at one of stations that was bomded.

pishwetspring · 13/04/2024 16:48

Herald of Free Enterprise
Lockerbie
Hillsborough

These 3 happened when I was at school (along with a number of other dreadful events like the Heysel stadium disaster and other air crashes). They stuck with me as they were so shocking and I was young.

As an adult the events that really stuck and I remember where I was were:

Dunblane
Diana
9/11
Cumbria shootings

ap1999 · 13/04/2024 16:49

Elvis - 1979 I was 15 and working as a summer volunteer on a play scheme for disabled kids.. all the adults seemed like a light had gone from their teenage years ..

1980 in bed.. couldn't sleep for some reason. Transistor radio under my pillow listening to radio Luxembourg.. (yes I'm that old) it wasn't too late maybe 10/11pm but I remember getting up and telling my mum who thought I had had a bad dream about my absolute hero

1997 .. baby 2 days old.. down in the kitchen making tea .. turned on radio 4.. couldn't believe what I was hearing. I am no royalist btw .. but I knew it was big..

PrincessHoneysuckle · 13/04/2024 16:49

Diana dying.
Michael Jackson dying.
Twin towers.

LakieLady · 13/04/2024 16:50

I'm ancient, so one of mine is the assassination of JFK, and of his brother.

Most of them are deaths, now I think about it: John Smith, Princess Diana, David Bowie, John Lennon, Amy Winehouse, but also 7/7 and the Grenfell fire.

I also have a very clear recollection of Margaret Thatcher's resignation and can remember where I was (at work) and what I was doing (sorting out the agenda for a meeting of the Central Services Committee). We all went to the pub to celebrate once we'd got it done.

I was in Sainsburys with my (now ex) husband when 9/11 happened, getting some last minute stuff to take on a camping holiday. We heard it on the radio when we got in the car to drive home. I thought it was the a R4 play for a while and when it dawned on me it was real, I was stunned.

hopscotcher · 13/04/2024 16:53

When I heard the Queen had died, I was on the slip road (northbound) for Junction 15 of the M40.

GwinGwyn · 13/04/2024 16:57

Lockerbie (that airline seat on a chimney stack still haunts me)
Dunblane
Diana POW
Admiral Duncan
New York 9/11
Claudia Lawrence
London 7/7

FictionalCharacter · 13/04/2024 16:59

Diana's death
9/11
Grenfell - I was awake that night and watched it live on Twitter, horrified.
Falklands war being declared

Glass113 · 13/04/2024 16:59

Jamie Bulger
Diana's death
9/11 and the queens death

LauderSyme · 13/04/2024 17:03

I was at my best friend's house when Hillsborough happened, we were actually watching the football match on TV and could see people being crushed and injured, yet no one appeared to be doing anything to help them.

I was living in central London on 7/7 and received panicked phone calls from family but was safely at home seeing it all surreally unfold on the media.

DanielGault · 13/04/2024 17:03

LadyMonicaBaddingham · 13/04/2024 16:23

The Ethiopian famine in 1984. I was 6 and I can still remember seeing the pictures on the news.

There have been a lot since, but that's the earliest I think!

The famine. I remember my mum watching the news and crying. I didn't really understand what was happening but it has stayed with me.x

LauderSyme · 13/04/2024 17:07

Yes I remember Michael Buerk's reports from the Ethiopian famine. The tiny emaciated babies stick in my mind the most. Now we see them in Yemen and Gaza 😢

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