[Closed] What were YOU doing 40 years ago today

Happy birthday Grim..!

I'd have been 11 months old. Probably gargling my first word. Which was "bobby", not Elvis....

(I've been to Gracelands - amazingly non-tacky given all its associations.)

I was holiday driving for a plant hire firm in Newcastle, mainly delivering to Tyneside Metro construction sites so I'd have heard it on the radio of my MK1 Transit.

Werent even an itch in my old mans nutsack

Seeing as i was 5yrs old i guess i was doing whatever my parents told me to do, apart from staying in school all day - i often used to jump on my bike and take myself home or if my dad was landing (fishing boats) i would wander down to the harbour and hang about on the boat till he went home.

Thanks to my gran i could read, write and spell quite well by the time i went to school so i was often bored shiteless which was a good enough reason to wander off and amuse myself.

I was 8, and my mum and auntie were sat on the patio with the first fag and coffee of the day. I got the newspaper from the front door, read the headline without understanding. and carried it through to them. I asked them who Elvis was and they asked why so i told them.

The memory of the response is still pretty vivid now.

Ask me again in a year. Probably crying, sleeping or feeding then.

Getting pissed in Walton Street Oxford, having a curry and my mates wife walked down to find us and tell him that Elvis was dead. He was a massive fan and was holding back tears for an hour.

It was the week before my 10th birthday (so yes I am 50 next week) and my mum & dad had taken us away camping as a birthday treat for me.

In the early hours me and my big brother were listening to a little transistor radio and heard on a news flash that Elvis had died. Knowing that our dad was a big fan, we ran screaming to our mum & dad shouting 'He's dead! He's dead!' and when they found out who they just told us to be quiet and went back to sleep.

Later that morning we went foraging for wild mushrooms to eat with our camp breakfast.

Tomorrow we take our eight year olds camping 🙂

In my Great Uncle Alfs Austin Maxi. The news came on the radio and everyone in the car was stunned at the news - except me. I was 3 and had no real understanding...

I wasn't impressed by Elvis at the age of 18 months.

Me neither. He'd sold out by then.

August 1977? I was kung fu fighting.

On another Elvis related topic - I recall my dad selling a rare Elvis LP back in the 70s for £50. I can't begin to imagine how much it is worth now.

You lot are old.

I can remember being woken up to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the moon, Aberfan, my dad watching the '66 world cup final and I know where I was and what I was doing when it was announced that Kennedy had been assassinated.

As a 16 year old I wasn't that bothered. As far as I was concerned at that time music started in the late 60s. Everything before that was in black and white.

70s news items I remember :

Thatcher being elected

I voted in that election; she still got in.

I can remember being woken up to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the moon,

Ditto

Aberfan,

Ditto

my dad watching the '66 world cup final

Scottish. No way we were watching that.

and I know where I was and what I was doing when it was announced that Kennedy had been assassinated.

You've got me there. I was only 2.

Elvis is dead??? 😯

I was all shook up. 😉 😆

But seriously, you expect me remember what I was doing on a specific day when I was 3? I'd struggle to tell you what I was doing last year on this day in any meaningful detail! 😳

@donald - I didn't say I [i]remembered[/i] it, only that I knew where I was. 😉

@noddy - can you remember what you were doing on 11th Sept 2001 roughly 2pm BST?

I havent a clue what I was doing ..........**** all has changed there then 😉

Elvis is dead???

No, he’s not dead; he just went home...

Rachel

Scout camp in a field in Coledale in The Lake District

@wibble 😉 - I woke up to the breaking news of the Twin Towers tragedy, back then my sleeping pattern was often really screwed up.

Discovering The Sex Pistols on John Peel's "Top Gear"...

working in a kitchen in the basement of a Boston Bar in Faneuil Hall (in Quincy Market), making salads and hamburger patties. A Cheers type bar but 5 years before that show was made. Didn't mean much to me as Elvis was err uncool (then) and I was into hippysh*t music... But now I realise he did sone great songs and had an amazing voice..

I would have been playing on a beach somewhere along the coast of Cape Canaveral, dressed in a pair of 70's terry toweling shorts as a very young kid.

Probably in the kitchen watching my dad pull bits of the pressure cooker out of the ceiling while rubarb dripped of every surface.

I was out riding my bike (5 sp Dawes Chevron racer) with my mate Melvyn Evans who told me as if war had broken out. I'd never been an Elvis fan and at 14 wasn't about to start.

Melvyn was a little scandalised and as he was one of the cooler* kids I wondered if I had missed something.

* all relative; this was Shropshire.

I picked up the paper (Daily Express?) at my Grandads in Tottenham and showed the front page to my mum. I remember her being shocked.

Came home from an evening shift, webt to bed and put Radio Luxembourg on. I couldn't understand why they were playing back-to-back Elvis tracks until the presenter mentioned his death.

Didn't bother me in the slightest at the time, nor did the death of Buddy Holly. Perversely, I like them both now (apart from In the Ghetto and American Trilogy, which sucked then and still do).
I did cry the first time I heard "Imagine" after Lennon's death.

At 14 I doubt I even knew. Watching the news wasn't high on my list of priorities. I suspect I my have cheered though not being a fan and fed up of those who were. Didn't really go with my tastes at the time.

All I remember of the summer of 77 was my complete fascination of Star Wars and when I could manage to see it again at the cinema.

And Elvis ain't dead. Last anyone heard he was working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines gently humming Love Me Tender.

All I remember of the summer of 77 was my complete fascination of Star Wars and when I could manage to see it again at the cinema.

Again? Didn't come out in U.K. Cinemas till Christmas of 77

We'd stopped somewhere in Derbyshire en route to the Lakes to escape the foretold Jubilee street parties - some village green with a parade of shops in which my dad procured some Creme Eggs for the first time, not doing so before because he reckoned my younger brother wouldn't eat it.

I remember reading the headline on the paper whilst simultaneously (and rather successfully) convincing my baby bro that he wouldn't like the Egg because it was, in fact, a real egg encapsulated inside the chocolate coating.

Gullible sod. More for me and big bro.

🙂

Edit : Actually, I think we were on a second holiday as I seem to remember going south in the Jubilee year, too.

I was caught in a trap and I couldn't walk out. Either that or I was a poor little boy with a runny nose, out in the street where the cold wind blows.

Cub camp at Mepal somewhere in the depths of East Anglia. Our sailing instructor told us about an hour before me and James Greetham got banned fron the lake for repeately capsizing toppers at speed and on purpose to see if we could snap the masts..

perchypanther - Member

All I remember of the summer of 77 was my complete fascination of Star Wars and when I could manage to see it again at the cinema.

Again? Didn't come out in U.K. Cinemas till Christmas of 77

Assuming I was in the UK at the time. Dangerous game is assumption.

We (Mrs BigJohn & I) were in our new 1st flat in Bradford. Julius K Scragg, DJ on Pennine Radio (235 MW) broke the news as we were getting a door-to-door enquiry as the Yorkshire Ripper had just killed his 2nd victim in our road. Not just his 2nd victim, his 2nd in our road.

Young PC was admiring our two dope plants proudly on show in our front full-length window. "I'm a keen gardener but I don't recognise those ferns".

We have an unreconstructed punk in our local pub. He's a bin-man (natch, as they say) with one of the best Mohicans (Mohawks?) I've ever seen and regularly wears a T-shirt emblazoning the headline "Elvis dies, age 42 - he was a fat c...".

You can guess the rest.

Wow.. I'm so glad you asked that because after some investigating I realised that this week 40 years ago I was on holiday in Wales. The only holiday I had as a child. It was organised and paid for by a local charity for underprivileged children which was run by a group of local teachers. 30 years later I decided I'd made a little cash and wanted to do something for the same charity. My timing was impeccable as a couple of weeks later I attended their winding up meeting. The original teachers had all grown old, the younger ones werent interested, I was devastated.

Working a summer season at the Pentire Hotel, Newquay.

I was a 17 year old in Fingers nightclub in Bridlington, when the DJ announced the news.

Heard it over CB radio (AM) whilst driving north on the A1 in my 'Yorkie Bar' wagon & drag (DAF rigid with A-bar trailer). Incidentally, my STW username used to be my CB handle.

i was in Lossiemouth on 849 nas playing volleyball on the line waiting for the cabs to return . quite a shock really as i was a bit of a fanboy

My girl and I were hitch hiking down to Newquay

I was 20 & was a plant/vehicle fitter with Durham City Council. On that fateful day I was changing an oil seal on the rear axle of a Ford D series 3 ton tipper, & when the bad news about Elvis came over the workshop radio I shouted, '****!'

As the half shaft went back into the splines in the differential I stupidly had my finger tips between the half shaft flange & the hub. (face fit)
6 big blood blisters!

ton - Member

stood in front of the headmasters office, waiting to get the cane.

I was in the Pyrenees with my father mapping some very impressive geological faults
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