What was the most memorable news event of your life so far?

People talk about remembering where they were when JFK was shot, when John Lennon was murdered, when the end of the war was declared.

Which event is it for you, which one really sticks there in your memory.

For me there are two, and they probably age me accurately.

9/11 - I was on the M6 heading back from the Wirral to home, listening to Steve Wright on Radio Two. They announced that a light plane had crashed into the WTC before going to back to back music for about 20 minutes, then coming back to start relaying the news as it broke.

Diana, Princess of Wales' death - one of the first memorable pieces of news I saw on the Internet - The Times online - saw the report that Dodi Fayed was dead and Diana "badly injured" then went downstairs to turn on the tv news (Internet news was still behind TV news in those days) and watched the announcements on there.

Michael Buerks reports from Ethiopia change my life. Being a teen in the early 80's I thought the world was a wonderful place with no misery, these reports put me straight on that. From that day forward I wanted to become an aid worker and as a result I have taken part in a number of aid convoys in to places like Kosovo and Chernobyl.

9/11 Was also a big one for me. I was working for Admiral Insurance at the time and I was in the canteen on the 23rd floor when then news broke. Within minutes the canteen was packed as we all gathered around the TV. It was around about this time that the internet went in to melt down and just about every news site was off line.

9/11 - I had Sky News on in the background which was showing live footage after the first plane crashed, and happened to be watching as the second one hit.  Spent the whole of that day and the next glued to the TV.  Having not really experienced any major events like that in my lifetime it's hard to explain the feeling of watching this unfold and following the story - surreal, devastating and fascinating all at once.

For me three events;

The Falklands War, I was still at school and one of my school friends lost his brother which really brought it home, seeing the carnage of british ships being lost and then the elation of the home coming will stay in my mind.

Death of lady Diana, watching the news unfold during the night!  Our son was only a few months old so both me and my wife were not getting much sleep at the time and seeing the story unfold on Sky and BBC and how confused the picture was.  Hearing the news she had died just as dawn was breaking was a very poignant moment.

9/11 like most on here such vivid memories and I can remeber thinking this can't be happening it just didn't seem real watching an aircraft crash into a building at lunchtime.

Great thread again Stef!

In terms of personal impact I'd say the IRA ceasefire in 1995, and the subsequent peace process that followed. I was growing up on the Irish border at the time and it made a massive difference to how everyone in our area were able live their lives.

9/11 goes without saying is the biggest news story.

The 1997 election is also up there for me. I was never sure that Labour would really get in. We had been so close before and then fluffed it. The Portillo moment that night, the recounts and his face when he lost. One of the very few nights in my life when I stayed up til dawn.

Interesting how events I watched reported on the news seem more memorable than the London bombings to me. I was working in Marble Arch, in a ground floor estate agents office. The day ( and night, I stayed in town) were surreal to the point where I remember it almost as a dream now.

For me 9/11 and I guess Princess Diana.

For 9/11 I remember I was in Birmingham City Centre walking to catch my train home from New St Station. My mate texted me that a light aircraft had crashed into the WTC. Believe it or not, I hadn't heard of the WTC before then and so thought nothing of it, thinking it was just some minor accident. Then as I got home my brother phoned me and started going on at me frantically to switch the TV on to Sky News, which I did. This great big jumbo was sticking out of the side of the building. Next thing I know the reporter's going like, "OMG! It's going to collapse!" And then the first tower just came down, shortly followed by the second tower.

Princess Diana is a little more vague. But I remember taking a cup of tea up to my Mom who was late getting up & we had to be out of the house shortly after to go to church. She was like, "Yes, I know. Shush a minute, this is important!" as she listened intently to the radio news report. I wasn't paying much attention - I don't normally when it comes to the news - then she came down and started going like, "OMG! Princess Diana's dead!" and started telling the whole story over.

9/11 - I was working in Ilkley and my sister (who worked in France) emailed me to ask if I'd heard about the small aircraft that had flown into a building in the US. I hadn't but looked online and then watched in utter horror as it all emerged. That night as I drove home I really didn't weant to go to my house and be alone so I called my friend and asked if I could go round to their house - which I did.

Princess Diana - I'd been out for my birthday the night before and was due to get up the following day to go to Ikea with my friend  I was living in Tunbridge Wells at the time and woke up with a raging hangover!. I was in the process of decorating and all my lounge was under a dust sheet.  My friend called me to say that Lady Diana had been in a crash and it was serious.  I had to search for my TV under the dust sheet and plug it in. I didn't move from the TV all day as I watched the news to make sense of what had happened.

I have a dreadful memory but remember everything about both those events so I guess they must have had a big impact...

For me it would be the first men to land on the moon. I remember watching it live on TV and holding my breath as the lunar module lowered the final few feet. I half expected it to sink. Real Boys Own stuff. Any Apollo missions , whether take off or landing, were always really big events and for a young (ish) boy they were just fantastic drama and seemed like science fiction coming to life.

I'd agree with Richard about the moon landings.  I remember my Mum showing me the newspaper headline (Daily Express I think) "MAN IS ON THE MOON" and her telling me the last time type that big had been used was during the war.  Other events include 9/11, Diana, Challenger, Concorde, Lockerbie, Boscastle - all disasters of one sort or another.  For happy ones - how about Dennis Taylor beating Steve Davis at nearly one in the morning, Torville & Dean's 6s or Pippa Middleton's dress?

That list should certainly confirm I am a "man of a certain age"!

Wow what a great question Stef !

For me it would have to be 1989 - The Berlin Wall coming down I lived in Germany at the time and that evening something changed in everyones thinking, you could feel is large a huge ripple, a wave of liberation. Everyone was out in the streets, people were hugging and crying just incredible. It was a huge release of emotion from a country that had been oppressed and supressed its emotion for years since Hitlers regime. I lived there until 1998 and the Country and watched the people and country evolve. I am not hugely political not clever enough to argue the causes. But I do know from a empathetic humanistic perspective it was an incredible time.

The second one for me would be Princess Di car crash - I was still living in Germany early in the morning being woken up by a call from my hubby who was on Military chef duty telling me of the tragedy and how the camp was closed to all non Military that day. It was a very sombre day all military personnel were wearing armbands and all flags a half mast. TVs and radios on all over the place and people genuinely grieving the loss of such an amazing lady. 

And the third was 9/11 sat in the office of Claires Accessories getting a call from our US office telling us to put the news on (we had people in the tower whom we lost) it was the most surreal, bizzare afternoon of our lives. I called my hubby who could not believe what I told him, When we got home I remember we stayed up all night in pure disbelief watching SKY News. 

The fourth was Maddy Mcann going missing we had been on holiday to same area and our daughter aged 4 at the time had been approached by a man on the beach fortunatley we were only a few feet from her playing at the seashore collecting shells and my husband chased the bloke as did half the beach who managed to escape. I remember watching that news with thinking that could have been us, watching the desparation and bewilderment of those two parents, almost to unbearable to watch. 

The question is as poignant as they may be at the time, do we learn lessons from these events? Do they reshape our thinking and lives? Possibly, maybe or do we just take them as passing news, and because of the scale of media coverage these days we become a part of it for the short time its covered and then fades away to become a memory. Interesting ...

Debs xx

 

A strange one was when the Queen Mother died. I was in Kosovo working on an aid project at the time, helping people rebuild homes etc, so we had no real contact with the outside world at the time. Suddenly one day the locals all started offering their condolences - with the language barriers it took a while for us to work out what the problem was. At first we thought one of our more remote teams had been in an accident or something.

For me it would be July 2005 (was it that long ago!!!) the London tube bombings, I was in london that day and couldnt get the real picture of what was happening all around us, I was called from home to be told just get out of London but with all the chaos this proved rather hard to do, so we sat in the middle of Green Park getting bullitins of news from the gathered crowds as all the mobile networks went down.

 

9/11  It still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  I worked in comms & pr,  and was running a meeting in the boardroom.  There were exec's from all over the world (including the states),  we had been in there for hours. No mobile phones were allowed on the site.  The conversation was getting quite heated...anyway we were due to videoconference with Japan.  It was a multi media meeting room.  And I was flicking through on the remote control to get to the Videoconference functionality.  And it flicked through to the news..and I remember thinking that someone had been in (off the night shift or something) and had left an action film in the video....and why would they be watching a video in the boardroom - which I know is a bit daft, but my brain wouldn't register what I was seeing somehow.   I kept flicking it over...then I just said its the news...you could have heard a pin drop - it went quiet for sooo long.  Then one of the men stood up and said that his wife worked there - so then we just focused on getting him sorted out (as much as we could).   Truly awful.

The end of the Falklands War sticks in my memory..my cousin was in 40 Commando and we went down to Southampton to see them come home.

And of course 9/11. My first baby was 4 months old. I remember watching the 2nd plane hit the tower and wondering what sort of godawful world I'd brought her into. I was glued to the coverage...some sort of mix of morbid fascination, horror and sympathy towards the people affected