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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:
DryFebEmma · 13/04/2024 19:45

The Bradford city stadium fire in 1985. I was playing out in the street as 5 years olds did back then and came in to my big sister (who was looking after me) sobbing watching the TV

Ruthietuthie · 13/04/2024 19:45

Diana's death
9/11
1997, Staying up all night to hear the election results, so excited (didn't really live up to its promise, but it felt like a moment of great hope).

Newuser75 · 13/04/2024 19:45

@SerafinasGoose I remember watching it on tv when they found him, then Gaza came with the chicken and fishing rod!!

annieloulou · 13/04/2024 19:47

John Lennon death - me and my mum in our kitchen in our house in Liverpool, mum always had radio 2 on, Terry Wogan, and it came on the 8.00 am news.

Diana death - that Sunday was my son’s christening day and I was having a lie in, DH was up with the baby, he came in the bedroom to wake me up, I was really annoyed until he told me why ……

Lockerbie - was on a plane coming home at Christmas from working in Jersey and had to change flights at Gatwick, we had to queue to land - airport was in chaos.

stargirl1701 · 13/04/2024 19:48

Lockerbie
Black Wednesday
Blair Govt Election Night
9/11
7/7
COVID

SerafinasGoose · 13/04/2024 19:49

I probably shouldn't, but I'm laughing like a drain over the story remembered upthread of Frank Bough and the knickers.

Boring old bald bloke who spoke in a monotone and wore dad cardigans. I recall a line from Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole diaries, when Adrian wanted to buy a beige cardi 'but my mother said it made me look like Frank Bough and refused to pay for it'.

Just goes to show you never can tell!

TheBestEverMouse · 13/04/2024 19:50

Hillsborough - my family are big football fans regardless of who's playing.

9/11 - in my first job watching it unfold over the internet.

7/7 - in another job when colleagues were in London at the time.

crackofdoom · 13/04/2024 19:55

I've thought of another couple.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin- I remember sitting in our local cafe in Venice where I was living at the time, crying over the paper.

And I don't know if this is much known about in the UK, but I was living in a van next to the river in Florence when I was woken by a bang in the middle of the night. Thought "What am I thinking, that can't be a bomb here, I must have been dreaming of the IRA bombs back in London!". It was the mafia bombing the Uffizi Gallery.

timtam23 · 13/04/2024 19:55

Death of Princess Diana
9/11 - I was living in Australia at the time and remember the late night TV on live news coverage.
The Bali nightclub bombings
The Kings Cross fire
Grenfell Tower fire
The disappearance and murder of Susan Maxwell - one of the victims of serial child killer Robert Black. I was the same age as Susan at the time and I remember hearing the radio news bulletin saying her body had been found. This was early 1980s

Echobelly · 13/04/2024 20:06

Diana's death - I was still living with my parents at the time and was out clubbing, I got home very early in the morning and slept in for an unusually long time (I couldn't normally sleep much after being out late) and my mum actually woke me up because I think with the news she probably suddenly got worried that maybe there was some sinister reason I hadn't got up yet, and she told me the news.

9/11 - I was in the office two months in to my first job and the finance director walked in and said 'A jet plane's hit the World Trade Centre' and for some reason I imagined she met a small plane, not an actually who passenger jet. It was pre social media and lot of the news sites were crashing, but I was on a forum at the time (not MN) which I used to catch updates.

7/7 I had recently got to the office and the first news was that an 'electrical surge' had taken out the Circle Line. We knew two colleagues had been on the bus at Euston once someone realised they'd said they were on a bus there just before the bomb and they hadn't come in after a few hours, and there was still no news of them - I remember the office manager, who was a tough lady, being in tears. Both survived but quite badly injured, although not life endangeringly - a medic said that neither having suffered a serious spinal or head injury was a pretty much a miracle as they were literally blown off the top deck of the bus.

SerafinasGoose · 13/04/2024 20:12

ResidualHeat · 13/04/2024 18:18

Perhaps not so obvious, when the body of Joanna Yeates was found in Bristol on Christmas day 2010. She had gone missing on the 17th Dec. On Christmas day I was busy in the kitchen, looking forward to family arriving. I was so happy and sipping prosecco while I stirred the bread sauce, then the news came on the radio that her body had been found in a snow filled ditch.

My heart broke for her family. They must have been distraught since her disappearance on the 17th, and to have received that terrible news on Christmas day, I just can't imagine the pain. I think about her and her family every Christmas day.

I do, too.

And of the family of Rachel Moran on New Year's Eve. She went missing on that night and wasn't found for more than a month.

Like Sarah Everard, she was simply walking home. Like Joanna and Sarah she was accosted and murdered by a depraved male stranger. Crimes like this make me boil with rage. These women were not in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their twisted killers were.

Curlyblondefemale · 13/04/2024 20:12

Madeline Mcann, My son was around 3 when she went missing and we'd just got back from a holiday abroad. It really hit me how horrific it must be to have a child just disappear.

LookItsMeAgain · 13/04/2024 20:32

Live Aid (not technically a news story but I do remember the news story by Michael Buerke that started it all off)
September 11th
I remember waking up to the breaking news of Diana Princess of Wales dying and my heart absolutely broke for her two boys.

InactionIsAWeaponOfMassDestruction · 13/04/2024 20:34

Bradford fire
Hillsborough
Live Aid
Death of the Queen
John Lennon murder
9/11

SuddenlyOld · 13/04/2024 20:43

Death of Princess Diana
9/11
London tube bombings
Boston marathon bombing
Germanwings 9525 crash
Hillsborough
Death of the Queen
Skripal poisoning
Russian invasion of Georgia 2008
Fall of the Berlin Wall

Hahahashower · 13/04/2024 20:43

9/11 and Princess Diana's death

IvorTheEngineDriver · 13/04/2024 20:47

Only 4:

JFK being shot - Aunt's Kitchen
Falklands invasion - In the bar of the Regent Hotel Leamington Spa of all places.
Iraqi Embassy stormed. - on a mate's boat at sea.
9/11 - at work in the office.

ThankYouFish · 13/04/2024 20:47

Queen’s death - at home, watching tv
Prince Philip’s death - at work
Holly wells and Jessica Chapman being found - I was the same age so this sticks in my head
Michael Jackson death - came downstairs for breakfast, my dad told me but it sounded like he was joking
London 7th July attacks - we’d been on a school trip to London the day before, my friend kept reminding us how lucky it was that the trip hadn’t been on that day instead.
9/11 - I remember coming home from school and seeing the footage of the towers on TV

I remember watching news footage of Diana’s death but was only 5 so didn’t really understand it.

Caroparo52 · 13/04/2024 20:48

Princess Diana's death.at mum's house on sofa.

notjaneausten · 13/04/2024 20:50

This will date me..on the morning of the Coronation, our Queen's, in June 53. I remember the announcement that Hillary and Tenzing had climbed Mt Everest.
My mother and Nan were having some Drambuie to celebrate, it was delicious! I was seven yrs old, and I remember it was raining.

ThankYouFish · 13/04/2024 20:52

Oh and the announcement that MH370 had likely crashed with no survivors- I was on a computer in a cafe at uni- I had been keeping up with the news on that one to procrastinate from doing work lol

WearyAuldWumman · 13/04/2024 20:52

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.

Dunblane. I was in our secondary school library, speaking to the librarian. The news report came across her radio. My HoD came in, heard the news...said "Mother of God!" and crossed herself.

Diana. Was having a long lie-in with DH when the radio informed us that Diana, Princess of Wales had been hurt in a car crash which had killed Dodi Fayed.

9/11 Was getting my pupils in line for a fire drill when a senior boy said "Have you heard? The Twin Towers have been hit."

WearyAuldWumman · 13/04/2024 20:54

Aberfan. Was home from primary school and Mum was crying. We lived in a pit community. Could see a pit bing from our livingroom window.

imforeverblowingbuttons · 13/04/2024 20:54

Diana's death- I was in my room with my boyfriend and my mum came in and told me I was upset. But then later shocked at the level of public grief.

Twin towers - at home and pregnant. It came on the news after the first I saw the second plane in real time.

Michael Jackson's death - I was at Glastonbury and everyone thought it was a hoax.

Manchester bombing - the first thing I saw on my phone that morning was I 🖤 Manchester. It was unbelievable. I still cry now if I think of it. I remember a young girl called Olivia was missing and her mum crying on GMB and she was one of the people who lost their life. A teenage girl. It could have been my girls so easily. Just abhorrent.

The lockdown announcement. I remember thinking 3 weeks, we can do this.

IamaRevenant · 13/04/2024 20:58

Amy Winehouse. I was at a rave at the time and fell asleep (passed out). Woken up in my tent to a loud announcement of what happened to Amy and it was a real wake up call re alcohol and drug abuse.

Also Jamie Bulger. I was the same age as his murderers.

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