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

[BlueberryBeret]

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?

Obviously 9/11
Lockerbie
Herald of Free Enterprise
Dunblane
When I was really little, a girl called Caroline Hogg (I think) was murdered - that had a real effect on me at the time.
Soham.

The Boxing Day tsunami...Newsweek had a picture of a Dutch father (I'm Dutch) clutching a picture of his 8 month old baby daughter who was missing. The little girl looked just like my DD, same age, same hair, same big blue eyes and two teeth popping up...

9/11 as I felt so utterly defenseless and angry and we were so concerned about our NY colleagues who worked next to the towers.

i dont think i will ever be able to read or watch anything about the tsunami tbh

9/11 - I had just started maternity leave and couldn't believe I had brought PFB into this kind of world.

Zeebrugger disaster - I am now phobic about going on boats like that.

Dunblane - not far from where I grew up. Dunblane is a lovely wee town. One of the type of places you would move to to give your DCs the "perfect" childhood.

Tortoiseshell I knew someone who knew Caroline Hogg and the family, changed them when she went missing. Went from being bit of a joker to quite deep and negative. Tragic.

When I was 11, a little girl called Susan Maxwell went missing near Coldstream. It really affected me.

Lockerbie. Too close for comfort. Saw it going over. Still occasinally have panic attacks if I hear a plane going overhead.

Dunblane
beslan - the paper showed a picture of a child who was the same age as Ds2, and looked like him. I cried for days.

The miners strike
The Berlin wall coming down
The aircrash involving the Nimrod.
I know 100s of service men and women had been killed before and after that, but it was the single biggest loss of life, and 12 of them were RAF. Dh is int eh RAF

Susan Maxwell was I think murdered by the same person who murdered Caroline Hogg. Tragic case. Babyramone - I don't think anyone could fail to be affected by knowing a child who was killed. for your friend.

For me it was Sept 11th that had the biggest practical impact on me - I'd just gone back to work after having ds1 and I'd only been back a week or two. I hadn't wanted to put him in nursery or go back to work and seeing all of the events of that unfold on teh TV in the lobby made me think 'life is just too short' and so I did what I'd wanted to do all along which was take him out of nursery, resign and stay at home with him.

Best decision I ever made too.

Death of Diana
9/11
Death of Steve Irwin
Maddie McCann