What’s the first political memory you have?

[ThisPlumShark]

Tony blair

The fall of the Berlin Wall. We watched as family on the 6 o clock news. Grandparents were German. It was a big moment for them - even though we were living in Canada at the time

Being taken to a Tony Benn rally when I was around 5. He knelt right down to my level and spoke to me very kindly.

I have a lot of political memories though...I grew up in a very political family!

The Vietnamese boats arriving in Hong Kong in the late 70's

I remember the Berlin Wall going up. I was 6.

My Mum crying when Ted Heath won the General Election.

9/11, the police came to our temple to teach us how to stay safe, gave us pamplets (no online shopping then!) which included places to buy see through durable bags to use at school. Being ten I didn’t twig that I could be beaten or arrested for carrying a rucksack, I was just annoyed that my dad wouldn’t buy me a silver blowup backpack.

Same. Then we had national strikes and 3 day weeks.
And then when they ended the threat of nuclear war.
Those lovely adverts about what to do if there was a nuke on its way - very British, the advice was to stay at home!!!!

Falklands followed by the miners strikes.

Richard Nixon saying something about there being no whitewash in the White House on TV.

Fidel Castro and Cuban Revolution against Batista January 1st 1959

when the Berlin Wall came down! I was around 8 at the time.

1992 general election. I was 8 and on a residential trip with primary school and the headteacher asked us if we knew who was PM (I remember this very clearly because he was trying to remove a tick from one of my classmates at the same time!) we confidently said John Major and were told something along the lines of there not being one right at that minute, and he explained what a general election was and how it worked. The next day he told us John Major was PM 'again' and I remember thinking it was all a load of fuss about nothing! 😂

He was a great headteacher though, absolutely captivating and taught us all sorts of random stuff that wasn't on the syllabus, lovely man. And a dab hand at removing ticks...

i remember my dad always ranting when neil kinnock was on the tv! Used to really confuse me as he is generally a very mild mannered man but he got so irate!

My friend Alison impersonating Margaret Thatcher in junior school.

Miners strike. I live in the South Wales Valleys and it was huge here as it probably was in other areas dominated by mining.

Margaret Thatcher becoming PM.

I was 9.
I remember a girl in my class walking along the queue to walk in to assembly asking each child if their parents had voted Labour or Conservative.
I remember feeling a bit intimidated and I almost lied and said Labour!

The 1997 election and Blair winning. My grandparents very vocally didn’t like him, which is probably why it stuck in my mind. I’d have been about 8 at the time.

I was only 3 or 4, but I remember the power cuts of the early 70s, and having to use candles at home. My dad worked in London, and we lived in Bucks…they had to car share later in the 70s because of the fuel shortages which I remember because I’d always be excited coming home from school to see his car in the drive, and then disappointed when I was reminded he’d gone with Mike or Mark or Phil or whoever it was.

George Bush senior becoming President when I was 6. I only remember that because we had a lesson about what an election is, voting etc. I don’t remember anything else so I don’t think they went into his policies in detail or anything!

Hearing the announcement of the death of Winston Churchill on the radio when I was seven... My parents had always been stoic about what they had experienced through WW2 but I knew it was a nationally felt moment when he died.

The Iranian Embassy Siege. I was very small, but it was a political awakening for me. Mad shit.

Oh yes I remember that very well.

The Suez Crisis. Was it Anthony Eden who resigned - I think so. I think petrol was in short supply but not rationed - a relation went on about it a lot.

Presumably some of the oil countries couldn't sell oil while the politics were unsteady. There was a Giles cartoon which showed a sheik with a few wives in a big gas-guzzling limo. The sheik was saying to the chauffeur "Once more round the block. We've got to use the damn stuff up somehow." We used to have a Giles annual at Christmas so if I didn't understand the cartoon at the time it fell into place later.

Can remember watching it on the telly we were glued.

President Kennedy 's assassination. I was 8 and was kneeling on the floor, drawing a picture with my sketch pad on the seat of a chair. The news came on the radio, and my mother gasped "oh my god!"