What was a big news story when you were growing up that young people today wouldn't have heard of?

[Brettthepei]

the queens mother passing

Ooooo fishy!

Children in Ireland barefoot still in the 60s
Food tokens after the war
Pounds shillings & pence
Learning the times table up to x12
Doing homework by candle light due to 60s power cuts
Mandela
Berlin wall

Release Diedre

Leah Betts, I still remember the images of her so vividly. It was really powerful in getting the message across about the dangers of drugs.

The wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Acid rain.

Labour's landslide election win in 1997.

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement (although obviously kids in NI will know all about it).

The Millennium bug.

Footpaths in the countryside being taped off and cows being slaughtered and burned en masse during the foot and mouth breakout.

The Belsan school hostage situation. Absolutely tragic.

Moors Murders
Maria Colwell
Vietnam War
Iranian embassy siege
Balcombe Street siege

IRA bombings for me, particularly the Manchester and Warrington ones as we live in that general area. I remember my mum’s panic as her sister was in Manchester that day.

Suez was in 1956.

Piper Alpha was in 1988.

32 years is rather a large time span for “growing up”?

Challenger exploding was big news internationally and I remember exactly where I was hearing about it but I doubt any young people today have a clue about it.

Jeremy Thorpe! It was constantly in the news, very salacious reporting, but we weren't allowed to talk about it!

You’d be surprised - my teen can give a full explanation of the failure and the stats behind it. There is a lot of info on YouTube.

Chernobyl, acid rain, Barschel scandal, fall of the Berlin Wall, war on the Balkan, Princess Diana's fatal car crash, 9/11, Beslan hostage drama.

I was just talking about this the other day. I remember in year 1 (now year 7 for all you youngsters) we spent what feels like weeks talking about acid rain and doing cover pages about how it was melting buildings (!) now don’t hear a peep about it

There’s a really good series on Netflix about this and the culture in NASA that led to the failure of the space shuttles, so probably quite well known

Yes - acid rain! And the hole in the ozone.

Political cl shenanigans in Thatcher's cabinet and how government seems now to be done so differently (and poorly in retrospect).

Massive strikes. For weeks on end.

Decimalisation in 1971.

'Freddie Starr ate my hamster'.

Susan Maxwell and Caroline Hogg being abducted. Both very close to home for different reasons. It definitely marked an end of innocence for me and had a deep effect. I still think of them. They were both killed by Robert Black but I don’t think their names are well known.

Falklands war.
Miners strike.
3 day week, power cuts.
Yorkshire ripper.
Thatcher, Thatcher, school milk snatcher. I hated school milk so that was a good thing to my primary aged mind!

Terry Waite being kidnapped
The Zeebrugge disaster

The first heart transplant. Louis Washkansky , performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard.

The H Block Hunger Strike

The murder of John Lennon

Ah, the saddest of cases - I think it may be Genette Tate? Her bike was found, there has never been any trace of her. The imagery of that is so vivid I remember the coverage very well.

And Maybe Julie Ward being murdered in Kenya - her father died recently so they may have picked that up, but it was huge news at the time, especially locally as I was growing up near her home town.

Fred and Rose West. I was talking to a student I had working alongside me who was in to real-time crime. She'd never heard of them!

Another tabloid story I remember vividly - Cecil Parkinson and Sarah Keays. Again lots of coverage, I mean I listened to the news as a kid but this stuff was more much more interesting. A very posh, very Tory scandal.