Where were you when ???? Died?

[tikay]

Age brings periods of reflection, & I was thinking back over a lifetime of those who departed suddenly & unexpexctedly.

I can remember precisely where I was, & who I was with, & what I was doing, when.....

1) J F Kennedy was assassinated. A friday nignt, at home, I was a kid. He was a huge hero to me, an icon. Presidents were all old & ugly, with blue-rinse wives. He was smart, handsome, with a beautiful missus., He had rhetoric (I was so naive then about the Kennedy Clan) & I idolised him. How could they shoot him. I read, in the years to come, every Kennedy Assassination book but even then, I spurned the crackpot conspiracy theorists.

2) John Lennon. I heard it on the radio, 4.30 in the morning, as I drove out of Nottingham where I had stayed overnight on business. I was on the A52, at Bardills Island. I still think "Lennon" every time I drive over that roundabout. In the next few days, it was Lennon-music non-stop on the radio. Fine, but suddenly he became the world's nicest man, which annoyed the hell out of me. He was not nice, not at all, he was a selfish, inconsiderate man, though, I'll concede, a good Father. I mean, as an adolescent, half the reason I idolised him was because he was so horrible, so non-conformist, he had long hair, he swore a lot (neither of which were the norm in those days) & now, suddenly, they were making him "nice". His music was just the best, then & now, his lyrics astionishingly easy to understand, but still perceptive. And he done drugs, which was then, outrageous, & I thought that made him super-cool. (And boy oh boy, how my views on drug abuse have changed down the years, but don't start me on THAT). So my "anti-hero" became a Hero, & I began a life-long loathing of the Media for their hypocrisy. They'd slated him when he was alive, now they loved him. Yuk. And his Yoko phase, how we all loathed her, until, to me, his time in New York, when he became just a regular Dad, & they interviewed him on Old Grey Whistle Test, with his hair scraped back, & an old-fashioned but oh-so-cool hat on. I truly loved the guy, partly because The Beatles were "my" generation. In time, I came to dislike McCartney, (Wings were SO naff) was ambivelant about Ringo, & Harrision became a huge hero.

3) Robert Maxwell. What an extraordinary story HE was. No bigger crook ever lived, he robbed everryone, openly!, & nobody ever suspected. What a dreadful man, but his death remains an unsolved mystery in my mind. Hard to believe he fell overboard from a yacht in the middle of the night, & he never had the guts to commit suicide, no matter how much of a mess he was in. And I don't buy conspiracy theory rubbish.

4) Princess Diana

Got home from a comp, 4am, saw it on teletext - she's injured/badly injured/dead. Never sunk in really, until they cancelled the football, which made me furious - at the time I was spread betting footie big time, & you know how selfish gamblers are. The funeral hoohah was extraordinary, but the anti-Royal stuff in the papers sickened me. Jeez, I hate the printed press.

5) Two Soldiers in Northern Ireland......

....beaten to death. I stlll have nightmares about it. I was seeing a girl from Crich at the time, we went to her house for whatever on the Sturday afternoon, & it came on the 5pm news on BBC. Two undcercover Soldiers, in a car - a Golf I think - somehow got mixed up with a funeral cortege from the "other side". Tried -desperately to back out, no joy. Door opened, struggle, gun in hand, passenger dragged out, disappears in baying lynch mob, film stops. Cut to two dead bodies, stripped to underpants, bruised & bloodied. Oh my God. Every death in NI ws a tragedy, for both sides, & my God, there were some horrible ones. Hard to imagine a worse death than being beaten to a pulp, a car/plane/train crash, or a fall, must be a walk in the park compared to that. So, so, sad.

6) The Queen Mum. Strangely, I recall nothing of her passing, even though I adored her.

I exempt Parents from this really, that's different. I remember Dad passing away as if it were this morning, but it's cool now, we talk every day. I don''t call how/when or why my Step Mum died, I can't forgive her even at this time of my life. The mind is a weird & wonderful thing.

What deaths do YOU remember particularly?

[Eck]

Take it the changeover is going a bit rough so you thought you would cheer us all up a bit..


My one most vivid is the space shuttle discovery

walked into a chinese takeaway after playin football for the college and saw it on the screen. never been able to forget the sight of the explosion and wondered if the crew were aware of if it they were completely unaware they were approaching their last seconds alive. hope it was the latter.

[bhoywonder]

Princess Di


going to work v early on Sunday morning ,about 0630 am

turned radio on ,getting strange music wotever station i chose...

couldnt quite work out why!!!

a whole 15 minutes of driving passed with strange ,sad music,until the news came on

[bolt pp]

I only remember princess Diana's death.

I was 15/16 and staying at my mates house we'd had a party and i remember waking up early in the morning and watching it on the news i was the only one awake, as a very irreverent young man i never had much of a countenance for figures in the public eye but i remember being quite shocked.

the following weekend(the weekend of her funeral) me, my pal and two girls went to margate beach on the day of her funeral, middle of summer, must have been only 20 people on the beach, it was so strange!

[tikay]

Take it the changeover is going a bit rough so you thought you would cheer us all up a bit..


My one most vivid is the space shuttle discovery

walked into a chinese takeaway after playin football for the college and saw it on the screen. never been able to forget the sight of the explosion and wondered if the crew were aware of if it they were completely unaware they were approaching their last seconds alive. hope it was the latter.

No, it's just that old folks tend to reflect more & more with time.

[Eck]

I only remember princess Diana's death.

I was 15/16 and staying at my mates house we'd had a party and i remember waking up early in the morning and watching it on the news i was the only one awake, as a very irreverent young man i never had much of a countenance for figures in the public eye but i remember being quite shocked.

the following weekend(the weekend of her funeral) me, my pal and two girls went to margate beach on the day of her funeral, middle of summer, must have been only 20 people on the beach, it was so strange!

Me and the missus went to the pictures and watched the Full Monty. Dunno why nothing against the girl but had got a bit much by then.

[Eck]

Take it the changeover is going a bit rough so you thought you would cheer us all up a bit..


My one most vivid is the space shuttle discovery

walked into a chinese takeaway after playin football for the college and saw it on the screen. never been able to forget the sight of the explosion and wondered if the crew were aware of if it they were completely unaware they were approaching their last seconds alive. hope it was the latter.

No, it's just that old folks tend to reflect more & more with time.

you are old??


well I never!! nobody ever mentioned that, always thought that was you grandad in the avatar.

[Graham C]

Princess Di

turned radio on ,getting strange music wotever station i chose...

couldnt quite work out why!!!

a whole 15 minutes of driving passed with strange ,sad music,until the news came on

same here.  Was dropping my wife off (gf then) at work and couldn't get anything decent to listen to on the radio.  Got home and was looking forward to the Liverpool v Newcastle game on the tele when I heard the news.

I remember when Freddie Mercury died too but can't remember what I was doing at the time. I was just gutted.

[charmaine]

Princess Diana

Was in bed August 31st when my then little boy Kalem came bounding in saying iTS MY BIRTHDAY !!! AND Princess Diana is dead !!  "  
Very sad day , one  that Kalem will not forget .

[AndrewT]

I was watching Sky News on the night Diana died.

Just after 1am, the newsreader said something along the lines of 'Princess Diana has been involved in a traffic accident in Paris.' One sentence, read out every couple of minutes for the next hour, between each report, as the rest of the news continued as normal. Admittedly is was 1am on a Sunday morning, but I did think it was odd that there was no mention on the BBC for an hour (after 2am, when they broke into their programme for a News Report).

Details were sketchy, not much information was around (or it was, but was being suppressed). Then a couple of eyewitness reports came in - one of the men in the car was dead, but the lady was OK - she was conscious and not badly injured. Crisis was over - I went to bed.

Woke up in the morning, turned on the radio and heard the national anthem being played over and over...

Freddie Mercury - was listening to John Peel's radio show in bed. The news that he had AIDS had only been announced the day before. John handed over to the newsreader, who announced the death, then John played 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'.

[CrestOfaWave]

Princess Diana

Was in NZ at the time - my gf (now wife) and I were in a restaurant with 2 friends and we had seen 4 rotations of dinners come and go as we drank wine and light bites from midday until late that night - overlooking Mission Bay towards Rangitoto Island. We heard the news in the early evening when the UK would have been waking up soon.

Put a dampner on what was a very nice chilled out day.

[MAF]

Princess Di - My g/f was on holiday and I was staying overnight at a friend's place.  We had been planning to go cycling that morning.  We got a call from a friend of a friend to say what had happened.  We turned on the telly and just watched it gobsmacked for the next 2 hours.

As an aside, a few days later, my g/f was on a beach with a friend somewhere in former Yugoslavia.  They has seen photos of Di in the papers, but didn't understand what they were saying as it was all in Cyrillic alphabet.  They saw a large boat in the sea and kept joking it was Dodi & Di, then an Italian guy came up to them and told them.  They had gone about 3 days without knowing what had happened.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Trade Center - We were on holiday in Tuscany and started getting texts from friends as to what had happened.  We had trouble getting the tv to work initially, but then someone plugged the ariel in.  We did wonder whether we'd get home (and in some ways we're hoping we couldn't).  We also had with us a friend who was scared of flying, and it took us years to get him to pluck up the courage to come with us on holiday - this that happened!!!

[77dave]

Tikay  where were you when Tribeca  died???

[tikay]

Princess Di - My g/f was on holiday and I was staying overnight at a friend's place.  We had been planning to go cycling that morning.  We got a call from a friend of a friend to say what had happened.  We turned on the telly and just watched it gobsmacked for the next 2 hours.

As an aside, a few days later, my g/f was on a beach with a friend somewhere in former Yugoslavia.  They has seen photos of Di in the papers, but didn't understand what they were saying as it was all in Cyrillic alphabet.  They saw a large boat in the sea and kept joking it was Dodi & Di, then an Italian guy came up to them and told them.  They had gone about 3 days without knowing what had happened.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Trade Center - We were on holiday in Tuscany and started getting texts from friends as to what had happened.  We had trouble getting the tv to work initially, but then someone plugged the ariel in.  We did wonder whether we'd get home (and in some ways we're hoping we couldn't).  We also had with us a friend who was scared of flying, and it took us years to get him to pluck up the courage to come with us on holiday - this that happened!!!

Oh yes, that's another - the World Trade Centre. Mixed emotions & feelings on that. So awful for the innocent civilians, heart-wrenching, but best not start me on the American Government......

[tikay]

Tikay  where were you when Tribeca  died???

Think I was mid humpy-pumpy.