My Shop (work in progress!)

Monday 8 September 2008

Where were you when...

From JJ's blog:

Princess Diana died - 31st August 1997?
I was 14 years old. It is a scientifically proven fact that teenagers need more sleep so I wasn't too happy when my mum woke me up around 9am on a Sunday morning. "Princess Diana has died" she told me, having read this in The Observer. She obviously thought it was big enough news to wake me. My first thought was that she'd been shot so I was surprised to hear that she died in a way that "normal" people die - in a car crash. My mum, grandma and I were going to go down to London and camp, just so we could say we were there as none of us are royalists, but sadly I had to go back to school a few days later. I was painstakingly putting the music of Kula Shaker's song "Hollow Man" into my music notation software on the computer. I had to do it almost note by note and played it many times to see how it was sounding and to see what it sounded like so far. Therefore I always associate that piece of music with the death of Diana.

Margaret Thatcher Resigned - 22nd November 1990?
I was seven years old, and I'm guessing this was a weekday, so I would have been at school. I vaguely remember it being on the news that John Major was going to be leader of the Tories but it didn't mean a lot to me. I should imagine that there was a massive party in Cleator Moor, a nearby town, as they used to burn a Maggie Thatcher guy every bonfire night. It wouldn't suprise me if they still did...

The twin towers were attacked - 11 September 2001?
I was 18, taking a year out after finishing my A Levels and had yet to find a job. My mum, grandma and I were shopping in Carlisle. We were having a bit of an Indian summer so we decided to sit outside at a cafe called Deli France and eat baguettes. Near the seating area was a Radio Rentals shop and soon there was a crowd gathering outside the window. We wondered what was going on as we couldn't remember hearing in the news that there was a football match that day. We finished dinner and went over to the window to have a look ourselves. It was showing pictures of the Pentagon and saying that part of it had collapsed. We wondered what could possibly have happened for part of the Pentagon to collapse. We carried on shopping and when we got back home my grandad was waiting to pick up grandma and he and my dad were sat on the sofa glued to the TV. That is when they told us about the Twin Towers. I remember getting fed up of the constant news coverage because they could tell us nothing new and wondered why they kept broadcasting. I remember having to go and lie on my mum and dad's bed so I could watch Star Trek: Voyager as dad wanted to keep watching the news. They had to change the episode they were going to show in light of the events of that day, so I wonder what happened in it.

England played in a World Cup Semi Final against Germany - 4 July 1990?
Again I was seven, so I would have been at school. If the match was on in the evening then it is entirely possible that I watched it as I remember seeing some of Italia 90 as my dad was watching it. I remember singing "Anchovieeeeeees, anchovieeeeeees!" along to Nessun Dorma.

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963
I was but an undeveloped egg in my mother's seven year old ovary.

4 comments:

J.J said...

I like the image of a grumpy teenage Karen being woken up 'just because Diana has died.' :-)

Gill said...

well grandma woke me up by telephoning and said "did you hear princess diana has died" and I thought it was a joke she had heard and started laughing and said "no I haven't heard that one".

I remeber doing a thousand piece jigsaw of Tokyo because the telly was continual boring tributes all day and it was pissing down and somebody was hogging the computer and playimg a dirgey song by Kula Shaker called Hollow Man which will always remind me of that day too! In fact I might download it in order to time travel back to that day for a few minutes.

Karen said...

I wasn't hogging the computer I had my own in my bedroom!

I remember doing that jigsaw of Tokyo too. It was awful, though not as bad as the one of the Mona Lisa made up of all the really tiny pictures. Does dad still like doing them?

Ruth said...

I can remember three of them - Princess Diana, I was in bed and my brother came in to tell me; twin towers, I was in Carlisle shopping with you! And JFK I was half way up the stairs.