Where were you when.....

[Hello Kitty]

I was in secondary school, I don't think I knew until I got home.

 

[ALittleStrange]

I was at work, one of the guys came running to our office to say quick look at what's happened. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. We took turns going to watch the news in the break room. There was an awful eerie feeling for the whole day.

 

[ClockworkDolly]

Was shopping. Happened to walk past a shop selling televisions and electrical goods. It was showing on one of their televisions. Couldn’t believe it, stood rooted to the spot.

 

[Sparks]

I was driving home from work when I heard it on the radio. I got home and my dad was in the garden and I asked if he had heard. He asked if it was April fools day. We went inside and turned the tv on. Absolutely heartbreaking.

 

[Peartree]

These are the ones I remember and will never forget

Diana - One of my friends got married the day before, and I was staying over at my another friends house, we’d obviously had a fantastic day/night got drunk and tipped a load of confetti into our friends letter box.
I awoke to my friend saying to her partner ‘how awful’ ‘I’m really sad’ ’im really upset’, so I actually stayed in my room thinking they needed some space. Eventually I left the room and they told me. Another friend came round and the four of us squeezed up on the sofa and watched it on the tv all day. I watched the funeral on tv too - cried.

9/11 - me and my now husband were in Amsterdam, we were staying in the centre, we‘d been out sightsering and returned to our room as Hubby needed the loo and whilst waiting I put the tv on. The first tower collapsed whilst I was watching and I remember thinking it was a strange film. When realisation dawned I sort of shouted to hubby. We watched It for hours. We had a posh restaurant booked so went out for that. All flights were cancelled at the airport for days - We were lucky ours was one of the first easyJet flights allowed to leave.

manchester bombing - 1996 - me and hubby both worked in Manchester hospitals and both on standby, thankfully there had been a good warning and everyone was able to be evacuated so only minor injuries. You didn’t get the same coverage then, the news just showed us clips

Manchester bombing - 2017 - first I knew was the next morning I was still in bed - hubby goes to work, gets the train to Victoria station as usual and the idiot text me to say they’d been a bomb - that’s it, nothing else, no details. Obviously panicked and rang him, it’d happened the night before and his train was being diverted.

Australian cafe siege - (2014) I was day off, I must of gone on my iPad early as I remember watching that all day, had coverage on my iPad and tv - i was hooked, even now can’t believed it was all televised live.

 

[Curlygirld]

I remember both 9/11 and Diana vividly.

Diana I would only have been around 6 years old but my grandparents were visiting and out the back having a crafty cigarette and I just remember my mum yelling to them “she’s dead, oh my god Diana is dead”. I didn’t grasp why that was important but I understood the emotion in my mums voice to know it was very bad.

9/11 I was 10 and playing hockey after school, my mum picked me up, she told me what happened in the car and we watched the rest of the news that night on the worlds smallest tv. I could even tell you the layout of the living room that day (which is no mean feat because my mother rearranged the living room every month! Still does actually..).

I was also in an airport flying out on holiday when the 7/7 bombings happened, watching it on the airport TVs and being quite terrified in case the planes were next!!

 

[bubbadabut]

I had a half-day at work, so I got home at about 1.15pm I think. My mum and dad owned a shop which we lived above, and they had a little TV in the kitchen. As I came in my mum said a plane had hit the Twin Towers (it was relevant to us as my sister had been on a school trip to NY a couple of months before, and had stood at the top of one of the towers. I wouldn't have known what they were otherwise). I assumed she meant just a light aircraft so I had a quick look, only to see that now both towers had been struck and the whole mood changed. I don't think we took our eyes off the TV for the rest of the day. I remember the feeling seeing the people fall, and the panic when there was a 4th plane in the air and they didn't know where it was headed. It's so weird explaining it to my young children. Just a day that nobody who was around at the time will never, ever forget.

 

[judsmum]

I’m always intrigued about things people were doing when historical things happened! Like the death of Diana etc.

On the anniversary of 9/11 I always go back to that day in my mind.
I was sat in the living room of my mum and dads house with the telly on, doing my college work ‘travel & tourism’ when the news came on. It was terrifyingly horrific and you couldn’t tear your eyes away.
I’m interested - where were you?

 

[Forfoxsake]

I was at work, at a call centre/telephone helpline. You weren't really supposed to use the internet for non-work stuff but everyone was just watching the BBC online news in horror, and as the news spread the phones were just quieter and quieter.

 

[TheFabFader]

I heard the news flash on Radio 4 after The Archers and then turned the TV on. My younger daughter had just started school and she watched the news too, I didn’t stop to think it might be a frightening experience her. I called my husband on his recently purchased mobile to tell him and, as the older children drifted in, they watched too, hardly believing what they were witnessing. The news was on the rest of the day. At that time I was quite religious and our church held an emergency prayer meeting. I suppose it brought some comfort but I doubt it did any good.

 

[Toffee finger]

I was in secondary school walking through the corridor when my tutor came past babbling about an attack on New York. My friend and I looked at each other like wtf is he on about (turns out he had a friend who worked there, fortunately they were ok). I arrived home and my grandparents were round watching the news with my mum. We’d been there the year before and I remember thinking about how busy it was and how many people were going to lose their lives. I can’t believe it’s been 19 years

 

[LittleMy]

I was in second year of secondary school (12 years old). My best friend was in New Jersey at the time on holiday staying with family. I remember getting home and sitting in stunned silence watching the news with my mum. I remember being so worried about my friend. I’ll never forget it, everyone thought the first plane was just a horrible accident and then when the second plane hit, just, god...

Those poor people, they must’ve been so terrified and their families so helpless.

Diana, I was 8. I remember waking up in the morning and my mum and dad were watching the news and it was on all day. Very sad. I remember feeling incredible sadness for her sons watching the funeral procession on TV.

 

[Lovegin]

I had just come in the house from shopping with my young son, I remember thinking it must be a small plane ( like a bi-plane) that had hit when the 2nd tower was then hit, my mum and I a few years earlier had been to the restaurant the
windows on the world, that brought it home.

Diana, I spent the night with friends, I can’t stand the memory and disgust of the British people braying for the queen when she was looking after her 2 grandchildren whose mother had just died and as for making them walk behind her carriage

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

I remember when Michael Jackson died. I was out at a club with my ex, was near the end of the night and everything went dark for a minute and “Thriller” was played. I thought it was an unusual choice for a rock club, but didn’t think anything else of it until my ex and I left the club later. We stopped at Glasgow Central Station so we could lift cash for a taxi home, and it was all over the news.

I was sat in a Wetherspoons and it came on one of the tv’s in there that he’d died. Non of us believed it at first.

 

[HoGi]

I was in year 7 and my mum came to pick me up from school at the end of the day. Got in the car and the radio was on, which was odd for her she never listened to anything whilst driving. As I got in the car she said sit down and be quiet (again unusual) and then she said a plane had flown into a building an it was all over the news

 

[TravellingPants]

I’d just started year 7 and after school my neighbour and I were watching something, which must have been on video thinking back as all the channels would have been showing the news? My mum came running in from work and changed over to the news, this would have been around 4pm UK time so both towers had already fallen. I remember watching the footage of people falling and jumping that wasn’t shown later out of respect and because it was so horrific to see.

Every year I watch every documentary I can find on the topic, it’s so devastating thinking about all those lives lost and the impact it had on so many other people. New York is a wonderful city and every time I visit I go to pay my respects at the memorial, I think it’s hard to understand the scope and size of it until you stand there.

 

[Renegadedancer]

We had just moved to a new city and had taken temporary jobs in a call centre whilst job hunting. People came back to the office from their lunch breaks and we’re saying what they had heard. The owner of the company said to us all, it doesn’t effect us it’s the other side of the world, so you need to get on with your work. What absolute arseholes they were.

 

[Apple In My Pie]

I was too young to remember this. It’s a weird thing - in school they don’t shy away from doing memorial type things around the anniversary of 9/11 but for me it wasn’t really spoken about, I think perhaps because my cohort is slightly too young. It wasn’t until I got to year 9 when we were made to do memorials and had lessons about it in school that i grasped the enormity of it all. It’s so sad.

 

[Gembo]

I was at my first day of college and didn’t hear anything until my mum phoned me when I was on the bus home. She said about a plane crashing into a tower and a plane going missing, I was really tired and as she was a bit of a drinker I dismissed it a bit as her probably making it out to be more than it was. When I got home the tv was on and I just couldn’t believe it. We were all glued to it the entire week. Even being in the UK I remember feeling scared that the world was under attack and worried about what would happen next.

 

[265]

7/7 London bombings I recall, I was home recovering from an operation and I remember something happening early in the morning and I had the news channel on and learned of all the events as they happened.

I also remember the previous London bombings by the IRA which did lead to the "Ring of Steel" being placed, I was home at the time on both
Bishopsgate and Dockland bombings.

Nail Bomb attack in London's Soho area, I was working in that area that day a few hours before the bomb went off.