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Original poster

News events that had a big effect on you...

34 replies

BlueberryBeret · 26/08/2008 22:49

I know this will age us (as in set an age on us, not make us older), but which are the news events that stand in your mind as really affecting you at the time.

I was watching Bowling for Columbine and remembering just how much effect the Columbine shootings had on me - I was the same age, listening to the same music etc and just stunned that it could happen.

Obviously things like Sept 11 etc have had a big effect (have never worked out why we had on news24 that day - we never just had the news on, but that day we did so saw all as it happened), but Columbine was that one that went straight through me.

How about you?

OP posts:
Babyramone · 26/08/2008 23:02

Lockerbie Pan am 103 bombing.
Was christmas and just seemed so close to home.
I'm scottish and also thought about all those people going home for christmas

And Dunblane, aside from the locality, Iam a nursery nurse and just couldn't believe all those little ones and the horror they must have gone through

hatwoman · 26/08/2008 23:05

probably like many my age it has to be the Ethiopian famine. Who's going to drive you home, by the Cars, NYE, I was at a party - well a small one, and we sat in silence and cried.

LuLuMacGloo · 26/08/2008 23:09

Lockerbie, Dunblane (am Scottish).

The Berlin Wall coming down (can remember where I was sitting in the room when the news came on).

9/11 - was very, very pg with DS and confined to the sofa so saw the whole thing unfolding.

Deaths - Elvis, Diana and John Lennon.

There must be more but brain is addled.

Babyramone · 26/08/2008 23:11

Hatwoman I have a pal who to this day can't listen to that song without shedding a tear for that reason.

NoMoreOlympics · 26/08/2008 23:12

the James Bulger case

I could still literally cry for hours about that

kormachameleon · 26/08/2008 23:15

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

jimjamshaslefttheyurt · 26/08/2008 23:16

Lockerbie. Friend of friends was on the plane. She was the same age as me (17 at the time) and flying home for Christmas.

Dunblane. Not so much at the time, but an article I read later on was horrific- about a man who'd lost his only daughter in it, months after his wife had died from cancer.

James Bulger- for similar reasons- later news articles.

LackaDAISYcal · 26/08/2008 23:17

The IRA bombings during the 1970s, some of the first news stories that I remember.

Lockerbie as my housemate had a friend who died on that flight and we had all watched it together on the news the day before he found out.

I'll never forget 9/11 as it was the day I found out I was pregnant with DS and remember howling my eyes out thinking "what sort of world is this to bring a child into" and not being able to tell people why I was so upset.

There are loads of others.

Original poster
BlueberryBeret · 26/08/2008 23:18

Hillsborough for me too - I remember seeing the pictures in the paper, and at a very innocent 8yrs old, I was far too young to see it, I was only just old enough to understand.

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Babyramone · 26/08/2008 23:19

Jamie Bulger though I found horrific at time really struck home when had my own wee boy. Also makes me cry.

BoysAreLikeDogs · 26/08/2008 23:20

Ginette Tate. The first time I realised that bad things can happen.

Original poster
BlueberryBeret · 26/08/2008 23:20

Oh hell yes Korma, again - for some inexplicable reason we had a news channel on.

Lockerbie I know very little about, except that my mum's ex was working on the clear up and used to wake sobbing

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bythepowerofgreyskull · 26/08/2008 23:20

first memories of being very upset by the news was the Piper Alpha oil platform

Mainly because a friend from school's Dad died in the accident.

Lockerbie absolutely horrendous
Jamie Bulger. wow the intense discussions we had about it at the time.

the louise Woodward nanny case.. I felt soo sorry for her throughout and never for one minute thought she had done it. But I remember her breaking down in court when they said she was guilty.

cyteen · 26/08/2008 23:23

Bit of a weird one this, but the Boxing Day tsunami - I remember being transfixed with awe and horror at the massive scale of the thing, thinking about all those thousands of people and everything they'd lost, thinking I'd never forget such a colossal tragedy. Two weeks later, walking out of hospital after my brother had been diagnosed with a cancer so rare even his experts knew almost nothing about it, I saw a headline about the tsunami and realised I hadn't spared a single thought about it since I'd first heard his diagnosis. The relative scale and the way my priorities had changed struck me quite forcibly.

FanjolinaJolly · 26/08/2008 23:25

Hillsborough Stadium disaster.Dad and brother were at the match.

jimjamshaslefttheyurt · 26/08/2008 23:25

Oh yes Gennette Tate - that's my earliest memory of bad stuff. She was reasonably local- especially to my grandparents and I remember all the signs up about her.

I remember Louise Woodward as well, - and how she said "I popped the baby on the bed" and the court thought she'd hit him or something because of the use of the word 'popped'. I also remember the programmes about nannying in the States that followed it. They were scary.

Heated · 26/08/2008 23:31

9/11 - was off work ill & saw it 'live' on the news, was like watching a disaster movie unfurl. Colleague's bil had flown over from the UK for a conference in Tower 1; he had 3 young children . DH bm also there but fortunately safe 2 blocks up.

eekamoose · 26/08/2008 23:32

Am having a senior moment here and I cannot remember the name of it - but that siege in the Russian school in early September that went on for days and then literally hundreds of children were killed. That is the news story that has had the biggest impression on me, even though I can't now remember the name. FFS!

The Soham murderers. We were on holiday in the area at the time and saw the story first as a small item on the local news.

9/11 - I was in hospital with 8 month old DD who had bronchiolitis. I knew there was this huge news story going on in the world and wasn't able to find anything out because I needed to be with DD. In many ways am very grateful I never got to see images of those poor people jumping out of the windows.

Heated · 26/08/2008 23:34

Beslan

pluto · 26/08/2008 23:36

Anti Poll tax protests, Thatcher resigning, Nelson Mandela being released and the fall of the Berlin Wall (all when I was at uni). The Omagh and Eniskillen bombs and other IRA atrocities, Riots in London and Liverpool in the early 80s, the Miners' strike and the Winter of Discontent. When I was a teenager I wanted to go into politics and I think these events were behind that motivation.

mamalovesmojitos · 26/08/2008 23:59

jamie bulger f%$&ing hell.

excuse my language. i was only about ten at the time but i remember my mum crying night after night around that time, watching the news. it was sort of the first time that i knew there was evil in the world.

then dunblane. terrified me. i was in scotland only a couple of years later near the place. was so distressing to see the signposts. my heart goes out to those living there, affected by such a tragedy

9/11 scared me and beslan really was just devastating to me.

madeleine mccann is only a few months younger than my dd so is also very upsetting.

i wish i hadn't clicked on this thread

lou33 · 27/08/2008 00:07

the tsunami

hatrick · 27/08/2008 00:15

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LittlePushka · 27/08/2008 00:27

Miners strike,1983, and the police battles with flying pickets...it wasthe first time I took any notice of politics and it was right on the doorstep.

Jamie Bulger,..crying now.

First Live Aid gig,..felt like a massive reliefto see things happening to ease the famine.

Ellen MacArthurs Vendee Globe attempt video diaries - talk about drive and motivation!

Janni · 27/08/2008 00:30

The Rachel Nickell murder. It was shortly before I got married and pregnant and I remember crying about the little boy, Alex, sittling by his mother's body.