The old saw has it that everyone remembered where they were when they heard that JFK had been headshot. What's our equivalent, 9/11, Diana, Brexit? I remember where I was for all of them - on 9/11, I'd been on a course and remember walking back from a smoke break, seeing a bunch of builders huddled around their van (even remember the radio mentioning 'fire') but knowing nothing about it until I asked a sad-looking colleague why he looked so miserable. I rode home keeping an eye on the sky that night, I can tell you.
9/11? On top of Cadburys Roof at Churk doing some air testing, finally ritired to the pub to see what was going on.
Princess Di? Living at home, woke up and saw the news?
Can't think of many other world stopping events (that didn't have build up)
9/11
Draycott in the Moors, Staffs.
About 90' up a bunch of Silver Birch trees, carrying out a [i]very[/i] sensitive crown reduction and canopy cleanse.
When I came down the client didn't like the way we smelled or looked in our chainsaw PPE, so we had to look at the TV in through the lounge window from outside.
We ****ed the job off. Sod leaf-blowing for some overly monied non-appreciative tart under those circumstances.
When I heard about Dianna I was in a little chef I think? Olympic breakfast FTW.
I heard about Diana late at night on the BBC news on my radio, next morning it was all very sombre music, so I knew the news wasn’t good.
9/11, I’d been out to a client, filling up the car, I heard the dj’s talking about an aircraft hitting one of the twin towers, might have been Radcliffe or Maconie, can’t remember now, got back to work, and it was all everyone could talk about. Spent the whole evening watching the event unfold on the news.
20/07/1969, I was on holiday in South Devon, no telly in the part of the caravan site club I had access to, so missed seeing the moon landing taking place, the day before my Birthday.
9/11 - at work.
Princess Di - at a Runrig concert at Stirling Castle. Heard on the radio when we got home that she'd been injured in a car crash.
9/11 I was working in a car sales place and Tuesday was my half day as I worked weekends. Came out of work, which was next door to home and Mum was talking to a neighbour who had been to America on holiday about what was happening in New York.
I went in the house turned the TV on and saw the second plane hit.
Diana We had a card meter for the electric and it was running out so had to go to a petrol station to get some credit. The radio was playing instrumental music which was strange and the DJ came on and said what had happened over night in Paris.
9/11 I was walking to work past a colleague's house and she ran outside to tell me what had happened.
Couldn't believe it.
So horrific.
Diana I was called by the girlfriend of the time. Was surprised by her reaction TBH, a *half black jew that had never shown any feelings towards the monarchy before.
*Do I win some sort of STW bingo or something?
9/11 Sat in the crew room of RAF Leuchars engine bay watching it on TV. The boss at the time, an American officer by the name of Custer (apparently related), told us that we were going to be very busy for the foreseeable future.
9/11 - at school watching a video in tech. Video stopped, news came on.
We thought it was a film at first, it was pretty crazy even to my 12-year old brain.
Don't think I would have known who Diana was when she died.
I can't really say what me and Mrs STR were up to when we found out about Diana, but it was a total head****
Ooooh another memorable event to add. First space shuttle crash ? First year Uni for me. Wow those jokes circulated fast
Diana - walked into my mates bar in ibiza and grown men were sitting around weeping watching the TV. I naturally remonstrated with them about crying for someone they never knew who led a privileged life when people died lonely and in poverty every day which they wouldn't give a toss about.
7/7 - waking up at a hotel in Toronto and putting news channel on. The wife and I then went to a diner and watched the news for the next 8 hours.
9/11 - similar to Diana. In mates bar in ibiza for that one too. Though in stunned silence for that one!!!! Remonstrations not required.
Lunch in Thai restaurant below Royal Exchage in middle of global marketing trip when 9/11 broke. Had changed schedule so that we flew out of Boston exactly a week before. We had originally meant to fly the same time.
Making my wife a cup of tea on the morning of Dianna’s death - shouted the news upstairs
Princess Di..heard it on early morning radio on the A19 southbound between Sunderland & Peterlee..on the way to pick up my mate Dave for a MTB ride out of Allendale ..the first people we discussed it with were the owners of the art / cafe at Clarigillhead half way around the ride.
9/11..doing some outdoor work at Houghton -le-Spring ..when was informed by client ..finished up and went home ..nothing has shocked me as much ..and nothing now ever will .
1969 Staged Moon Landing ..I was 12years old and on a family holiday in a cottage in the Lake District ..that was the day that my mam discovered " the other woman's shoes" in the family car!
I thought the whole thing looked "fake news" (to quote a recent Americanism ) even then and nothing since has convinced me that it was for real .
That was the beginning of the end of my parents marriage..so that has more significance
and nothing since has convinced me that it was for real .
Oh dear. Threads like this always start so innocently
😆
9/11 I was a liaison officer in the back of an armed response vehicle as my team surveilled a yardie drug dealer across London and I was to guide the firearms strike team in. I remember telling a colleague we were going to loose the armed support due to the attack, they'd been out since early doors and running around so were unaware of the whole thing and then a very loud three car convoy across central London, via Parliament square which got us a lot of strange looks from the public. We got the yardie next day with 21kgs of heroin.
Diana - walked round to the garage to get milk and a paper in the morning saw the headline and went back to bed having told the girlfriend, remember all the shops being shut later, the start of days of mawkish shite.
I never thought Diana was a big deal, still don't tbh. Sad story I thought but that was all. Then I was amazed at the hysteria that ensued. I was working at burger king.
9/11 was working near weybridge. Thought it was big but never realised how big until later in the day.
Brexit. In bed checked the news felt sick, lost any remaining faith I had in the UK population. Unfortunately it has also prejudiced me against over 50s.
I also remember John Lennon's murder.I was off school with a bug,my mammy cried & we listened to the Beatles.
Diana - I played football in Regents Park and had a couple of pints in the Dublin Castle - An artist I had been involved with was on the radio a lot.
9-11 - I drove over Cold Fell (beautiful clear sky) and went to my friends house to watch the news.
9/11 -on 6-2 shift in work; some guy mentioned something about a plane hitting a skyscraper in USA; he often got things arse backwards ... so didn’t really take much notice. Got home - wife mentioned similar story, so switched on news ...
Diana; had a car accident afternoon before. Laid up in bed unable to move properly. Was gutted because daytime tv that week was even worse ... all nonsense hypocritical outpouring of love for someone a couple days ago the papers were slating.
Twin towers I remember 'cos I was at work.
Diana - no idea. simply not important to me
Diana - in Leicester, turned the telly on and was disappointed that normal Sunday tv had been disrupted, on the plus side it got us out of the house earlier than normal so we probably made more of the day. Every cloud...
WTC - At work trying to get a job out against a silly deadline, we had the tv news on in the studio although I didn’t really follow it too closely on the day.
7/7 - at work again. A lot of staff were delayed coming in and there was a sense of relief as each of them eventually made it through the door or phoned in to say they were ok and on their way. We shared a party wall with a major London station and there was a concern that the number and scale of attacks could escalate and even if that wasn’t the case getting home was going to be tricky so we closed up early. Looked like a lot of places did the same. I rode home but there were thousands more people than normal walking out of the centre of town that afternoon.
The murder - in a wooden house's downstairs study on a single bed in Greenwich CT.
The false flag controlled demolitions - graphic designing in an old mill in bellbroughton
9/11... after confirmation that the towers had indeed been 'attacked', we spent most of the afternoon outside the office (beside Canary Wharf) or in the pub down the road.
Texting/interweb had almost ground to a standstill so there we were, looking up to spot the occasional plane heading toward the tower wondering if it too was going to hit. I think a no fly / diversion zone was enforced within minutes or hours.
''Twas an eerie time.
That evening I was in the pub back home with the missus listening to Bush spouting his patriotic spiel.
9/11 - working at what would become Three,The first reports made it sound like a small cessna had hit a tower. We couldn't get any more info as the main news sites were all down - remember driving home listening to the radio as they collapsed.
Diana - on a dive boat in the Sound of Mull. It was a grim trip made bearable by the cook (ex drug dealer, HIV positive, baking legend) but we had to start buying him ingredients as the skipper was rationing the butter. Nobody on the boat was particularly into the royal family thing so it didn't have a big impact, but we drove back down on the day of the funeral and the roads were nice and clear.
Brexit - the day we went away for the OH's sister's birthday. Spending the next week with some rabid little britainers was "interesting", but I guess it would've been either way.
But who remembers where they were when they heard that Joe Cocker had died?
9/11 we were running the youth hostel at Tongue for the summer. No tv, only poor radio reception. Gordon up at the filling station kept us informed. An American girl staying in the hostel was in tears, kept asking why everyone hated America so much. Astonishing day.
Diana - looking after a house for the summer. Had fallen asleep with the TV on, woke up to dirge music.
9/11 - in Canary Wharf in a project meeting, came out and everyone was crowding round people's laptops watching the footage. 1CS began to evacuate and we all buggered off at high speed. I called into a project team in South Ken and by the time I'd finished there the Tube had been shut down so I part walked, part bussed the rest of the journey home.
7/7 - on my way into 30TSC for a meeting. Didn't get there clearly. Ended up part walking/ part bussing back to my office.
Trump election - staying in Wells for work. Was a feeling of deep shock the next morning.
911,the first I knew about it was when I was on the phone to someone & they mentioned it,I switched on the telly sharpish.
I found out about Di's death on the telly.The main thing I remember was my Rugby League team played Paris that day & I felt like I was living in some kind of totalitarian country were we had to listen to sombre music & go around in mourning for someone we had only ever seen on the TV.The worst part of this farce was being subject to a minute's silence in the pub..
I remember that space shuttle blowing up shortly after take off in the mid eighties.I was on the dole,sat at home listening to 'I love all things American' Steve Wright on the radio,I think they had a TV link in the studio & they were banging on about the shuttle taking off,the mood changed a couple of minutes later.
9/11 I was working from home for US company and had dialled into a conference call. After 10 mins I sent out a few AIM messages asking why no one was on the call and got a reply saying 'turn on your TV dude'. I was on the 1st flight out of Glasgow to Newark when the flights started back up and it was eery, sombre experience.
9/11 I was working, just got into work and had a call from a colleague who said “got a radio, put it on now” didn’t have a radio so popped out to the car and sad I both awe and utter sadness. I was so shocked I drove home and put the tv on and watched the endless repeats and speculation and devastation...
Diana I was at a rambling country home in deepest Derbyshire staying with my then GFs parents, woke up put the tv on and the output was all somber and sullen music on every channel.. for a little while I thought the Queen had died until a rolling footnote on the tv proclaimed the events details..
Brexit I was working, gobsmacked as all my European colleagues were looking at us Brits expecting to be lynched or chucked out of the country there and then.. then the endless questions of “don’t you like us, why didn’t you say something sooner, I thought we were friends ?”
9/11 & Diana's murder for me too.
9/11 - at work. Mate messaged me and I replied "Any one get killed?" Seemed a pretty silly question later.
Diana - on holiday in Ibiza. Wife was ill and I went down to get some medicine - all the Brits were crowded round a telly in the reception. I remember saying "The press have killed another one eh?" cos shortly before there had been a soap actor driven to his death by the paps. Can't remember who he was.
9/11 - I was at work. Yorkshire Electric in Seacroft, Leeds.
Diana - I'd just got back to my flat in Brighouse after a night out in Huddersfield. It was about 3am and I turned the telly on and it was breaking news.
9/11 - In the canteen at BBC TV Centre. Kept wondering why people were staring at the tiny telly in the corner, and why folk were suddenly leaving their lunches and sprinting off down the corridor...
Worked for a non-core part of BBC News Online, so didn't bother carrying on with any of our output for the rest of the day, as it wouldn't get used. Just sat and watched it with our jaws on the floor like everyone else.
Diana - I was staying over at my boyfriend’s parents house and we were getting jiggy with it when his Mum burst in with the news.
9/11 - it was my first day at Cornwall College doing an ONC in Buildng Studies. I’d been done for speeding on the Camborne bypass in the morning. Heard the news during the day and saw the telly when I got home. It was really shocking.
Erm
Diana - riding
9/11 - working
Challenger and Diana, both at my parents and told about it when I woke up. Challenger had far more of an impact on me.
9/11 at work clicking on BBC news web site with confused stories of stuff going on, we're all thinking it's a tragic accident and then twigged when second plane hit. Then the Internet ground to a halt. Concern about staff/customer/partners that may be in the towers.
7/7 driving into work and hearing signs into London were showing to avoid London, thinking "oh shit!"
Columbia - skiing. Saw it on the news in hotel in the alps somewhere, though can't remember where.
Brexit - can't remember, other than just thinking "idiots".
9/11 walking back up the hill from the pub to the studio a mate drives past and tells me a plane had flown into the WTC. I assumed a little Cessna. Into the sales office to see the telly on and then I realised how big the plane was.
A little later we watched the second plane fly in and that was the moment we realised the world had changed. As the office Kiwi said "The Yanks are gonna go spastic."
Diana. I was windsurfing with the wife. We didn't find out until we returned to civilisation in the evening and a barman said "What about Di and Dodi then?" I said "What?" and waited for the punchline... never came.
Didn't bother me at all.
What was brilliant was the issue of Private Eye the following week. They could have done so much but what they chose to do was print what all the national press was saying in the Saturday and Sunday first editions and then what they said in the Monday papers. Sinner to saint in 24 hours.
Dunblane. Driving to Anglesea for a bit of Windsurfing. The reports started coming in on the radio and I had to stop the car and get out and walk a bit. I think that and Locherbie had the stongest emotional impact on me. 9/11 was a bit too big to comprehend, but a school of little kids...
Hungerford. I was in Buckingham when the reports came in. Mum and Dad were bowling that day in Hungerford so I was frantically trying to get in touch with the bowls club there. They were fine of course.
Diana - stood in my then girlfriend's kitchen. Seemed to affect all possessors of XX chromosomes in a different way to those possessing XY.
9/11 I just got back to our office opposite Monument in London having been across the river to the city. Loads of people in the usually quiet office stood up, shaking heads, looking wide-eyed.
Diana - no idea.
9/11 I'd been at my then job for exactly one year so my manager said let's go to the pub at lunch for a beer (on a Tuesday!). Got back to find every TV in the office (it was a company on the tech side of TV) showing the first burning tower with people saying a small plane had crashed into it then the second plane hit and we all knew that it was anything but.
9/11 at work, message came scrolling round on the pager dot matrix that a plane had flown into one of the towers, I muttered something about "bloody Cessna or something". After the second page message we broke out the TV and watched in horror.
Diana, no idea, not important to me, Diana's funeral was spent grinding knee sliders on local roads and roundabouts as the roads were so quiet.
7/7 at work, !(Horsham) got a sarky text from a colleague about causing fires on the underground (I have a history with unplanned thermal events). Texts stopped when people realised it wasn't an electrical fire.
Diana's funeral was spent grinding knee sliders on local roads and roundabouts as the roads were so quiet.
Have a very vivid memory of opening the front door while that was going on* and hearing absolutely nothing but wind and birds, not a single vehicle in earshot. Weird moment.
* The funeral, not Ming out scratching. 🙂
9/11 Ozzie backpacker hostel, thought it was a film at first.
Diana Death - Stoned AF with my mate's mum
Diana's funeral = top speed run on motorway as it was so quiet.
Diana: in the kitchen. Remember we were pissed off about the amount of fuss that would be made but otherwise not a big deal (and I think I was still working for a charity of which she'd been a patron. I'd not met her but most of our comms/events and fundraising folk had).
WTC: just moved out of London. Felt relieved as I was sure property prices in world capitals would crash (instead of going up fourfold as they did. Hey ho.) A certain self-centred theme seems to be emerging...
7/7: in a hotel in Bloomsbury. Massive rattle of the windows was obviously a bomb - bus round the corner blowing up reminded me of the several IRA bombs I'd heard go off - and my first thought was 'well that's my trip home buggered'. That's how selfish. Set off on foot for my meeting on Gower St as I didn't know what else to do, bypassing Tavistock Square, and the meeting actually went ahead, though we weren't allowed back out until a couple of hours after it finished. Ended up walking to Chalk Farm to kip at a friend's as no trains out of KingsX.
In early 1989, I remember putting my hand up during a GCSE History class to ask my teacher if he thought that the Berlin Wall would come down in our lifetimes. Several months later, I was at our neighbours' house watching people on the television swarming all over the graffiti'd wall with sledgehammers. My neighbour had been based in Berlin during the Missile Crisis and vividly recalled eating breakfast in the mess hall and looking out of the window at Soviet tanks, lined up as far as he could see.
Two years later, I was sat in another History class at sixth form, when a breathless teacher ran into the classroom to inform us that the Prime Minister had resigned. Out of a class of sixteen, fifteen of us cheered loudly apart from one guy who cried.
