h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have you ever witnessed historical events at first hand? Were you there when the Berlin Wall came down? Were you at Cape Canaveral at the launch of the Challenger? Were you by the roadside for St Diana's funeral? Were you near the explosions in London on 7/7?

Were you aware at the time that what you were witnessing was historically significant? Did your experience match the media reports? How did you feel at the time?

I was in Manchester City Centre when this happened;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/15/newsid_2527000/2527009.stm

Fortunately not actually present in the exact locality when the bombs went off - although I was about to head to The Corn Exchange.

The local media reports were fairly balanced I seem to remember - the national ones less so (although that could have been because of the national newspapers I came into contact with at the time).

How did I feel? Bloody lucky I'd just missed the earlier train.

I believe Greydesk was in Kings Cross Station half an hour before the fire.

I was an extra cup of coffee's worth late for the bus that was blown up in Russell Square on 7/7.

Close shaves, and I for one am glad my shave was no closer.

I was in Piccadilly Square when this happened. I had actually left Woolies about 10 minutes before and was in Lewis's when all hell broke loose! It was not pleasant, and the story afterwards was worse! All because of a cigarette down the back of a sofa, and one Emergency exit being locked, and another being barred!

I was at Manchester Poly from 1978 through to 1980, and saw some street-wise stuff that has stood me in good stead since, but I wouldn't like to go through that again!

The other was 07/11, trying to get to work, where I knew nothing and took 3 hours to get to work, with everywhere, only to be greeted with 'What the kcuf are you doing here! Go home!' Except everything was shut down, which is why I could not communiacte with work, as the Mobile Phone system was shut down. The first person to communicate with me was from Germany!

MMF

I was in front of Belfast's city hall when the news of the Good Friday Agreement came through, paraded by the Belfast telegraph newspaper boys. The crowd cheered and spontaneously broke into applause. But it wasn't a day for soundbites!

Hardly life-changing news but when Charles & Di were engaged, my parents & I were at the polo match in Tidworth in 1981 where Di first publicly broke down under the strain of paparazzi attention. My dad insisted she had been mortified at the paps' barging into the way of my mum (who didn't have a great line of sight, being in a wheelchair after a stroke). But dad was always prone to economy with the actualité. He got a couple of photos of Di though (I was 6).

I was at home during the 7/7 bombs having a day off, but it seemed everyone I knew was texting me to make sure I was ok. When something else happened a week later and I actually *was* in London no-one seemed to care.

Eventually I walked back to Liverpool Street from Bush House (where I'd stopped due to the travel problems preventing me from getting to West London), despite all the calls to stay put and not move around and although I didn't see anything other than a few police cars zooming about, it was very, very strange to be walking from one side of the City to the other and hardly see anyone around.

I was in Israel during the Lebanon war. From the middle of the country you wouldn't notice much, apart from the 'planes flying to the north. (Oh wait, I think I went to Haifa one day, but rather at the beginning.)

The Lebanon war, I mean the one in 2006

I'd arrived at my desk when the July bombs went off...we were scanning the news websites to find out what was going on.

There was a lot of nervousness amongst the non-British staff, whilst most of the Brits were saying "30 years of the IRA, we're used to this kind of thing".

RF

I remember the Great Storm of 1986 and trees down in road on way to work. There were I think 13 or 30 million trees knocked down and 90% of trees in forests and plantations in south of England destroyed. There was a programme about it recently and they said that due to so many power lines being down that for the first time ever the electicity in London was switched off over night to protect the rest of the National grid across Britain. I think people have forgotten the scale of destruction and number of houses, factories, ect damaged mainly in south but up to midlands to a lesser extent. It was after all hurrican speed winds and a fair number of people were killed.

Wasn't that 1987?

Yeah, but that was nothing compared to "The great storm of November 2007

I was in Peru in 1999 when they captured the leader of the Sendero Luminoso ('Shining Path'), a major guerilla group which I seem to remember had a Socialist ethos. We'd just arrived in Lima and were busy kind of adjusting and organising the first parts of the trip, but some of my friends saw a report on TV about it. A couple of them actually went down to the national justice buildings where he was being held, but there wasn't much to see except cordons of armed guards...

I was in Los Angeles the night the Rodney King Riots started - my stepdad had taken me to a baseball game, and on the way back out of the city, the horizon was burning all over - I remember him saying that was odd, there wasn't a facotry or refinery over there that could have caught fire... He locked the doors, as there were looters running past the car and people smashing things...

I had just turned 8 at the time, and it rather impressed me - my only real memory of downtown Los Angeles. I was accordingly nervous about going back to LA during our field trip to the US last semester

I occasionally tritely say that I sat on the Warrington bomb. What I actually did was sit on the bin that blew up, about 30 minutes before it did so. No idea if the bomb was in there at that point. Was well on my way home on the bus before it went off, so saw it on the news. Disturbing.



Local-news-worthy: I was one of the first half-dozen people on the scene when some poor lad fell of Tryfan last weekend.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7377505.stm
The helicopter in that picture was, for a few minutes, hovering so close to me I could easily have lobbed a rock in through the door. That's a weird experience - being out in the wilds, 1500 feet up a rocky crag, and having, hanging in the air in front of you making a huge Bodawful noise, a machine the size of a bus. Took them six HOURS to get him down... (By which time my friends and I had retired to the pub, having given up on doing Glyder Fach as well.)

Me and a mate snuck to Manchester the day the bomb went off - while we were nowhere near it, we couldn't get home before our folks realised we were missing. We were both grounded for something like 2 months when we finally made it home.

As a very young kid I helped search a part of Bootle docks looking for Jamie Bulger.

As the antithesis of this conversation. During my first term at university, the Berlin Wall camed down, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc. all had revolutions.

I very nearly missed it all through being fully off the leash for the first time in my life and getting too much

I say nearly, I picked up the paper in our college JCR one day and thought oops.

Was within 20 minutes of one of the Paris metro bombs, 1992.

Didn't realise until I went to leave the Jardin du Luxembourg and the whole place was covered in CRS (elite police).

sprout

I left my husband on the day of The Hyde Park Bombing July 81(?) got lost on the way, and ended up attempting to drive thru the Park within minutes of the bomb going off, with a car packed with LPs, bin bags of clothing, and a tranquilised cat stretched out on the back seat;

I was stopped by 2 coppers,who asked to search my car; everything seemed terribly grave and serious, but obviously, they couldn't tell me anything.

My main memory is of one of them asking me why I had a "dead cat" on the back seat

"Well,my husband put him in the washing machine, so once I'd dried the cat off, I packed my bags and left him; the vet gave him a sedative, so he's not dead really,honest"

"The vet gave your *husband* a sedative?"

"I hope not; I backed into him and broke his toe when I left"

After that, it got really surreal; I often wonder if those 2 coppers remember a wild eyed nutter with a not dead really cat and a severe case of panic induced gibberish.

But the cat survived and so did I

And so did Sefton the Horse, I believe.