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The nostalgia track got me thinking (bit of a stretch I know!)
When the whole rave culture thing was happening I'd have been in my late teens/early twenties - prime rave going and drug popping time. But no - it completely passed me by! Apart from mainstream radio-play stuff it wasn't on my or my friends radar.
I was in fact helping my girlfriend (future wife) at horse shows most weekends, clay shooting or going to car race meetings. 🙂
We did go out but only to local pubs or at a push a night round the local town. We did go to gigs, but they were rock gigs - Def Leppard, Thunder, Extreme, LA Guns etc. - the finest rock of the era. 🙂
Both of us coming from small villages probably didn't help.
I kind of feel like my parents, who said the 60's weren't all they were cracked up to be, as the culture didn't really reach the small villages they grew up in.
Live Aid. Knew nothing about it until we got back from a holiday in Corfu to all the fuss.
Loved the late 80s early 90s dance scene (largely driving round the m25 in a Ford Escort listening to pirate radio) but due to the traumatic aftermath of first child arriving totally missed the 2012 Olympics. Didn't even see the opening ceremony.
Edit. Also totally missed the Diana mourning thing as lived abroad. Watched from afar bemused.
Berlin wall coming down. We were in Hong Kong at the time and I was 7. I like to think I was old enough to remember it but no. Brother does and he's 3 years older.
Vietnam war ending. I was 11 years old when it ended, I can remember F1 and Barry Sheene from that era but nothing about it. First appreciation was meeting as a cadet an Aussie sergeant major at an artillery course at Larkhill who'd been there, then the series of films in the 80s, then meeting Americans in Moscow (negotiating pipelines) in the 90s who'd fought there.
We're really lucky that the UK didn't get involved in that war.
Princess Di meeting her untimely end.
My wife (well girlfriend at the time) and I were working in Oenpelli (NT Australia) when a local came over to us and took off his hat before crying and telling us our 'queen was dead' We assumed it was Lizzie and as only I was from the Uk and not a royalist didn't give it much thought....luckily missed all the hysteria and nonsense so quite thankful for that.
Scott and Charlenes wedding. Gutted.
Death of the Queen. Sad for her family but, I don't really care.
Princess Di meeting her untimely end.
Me too. Fully immersed for a week or so in rave culture, if you get my drift…
I kind of feel like my parents, who said the 60’s weren’t all they were cracked up to be,
‘The sixties’ was really just David Bailey and a few hundred of his cool friends - lots of people read about it- very very few experienced it.
Pleased to say I anticipated the return of the wider trouser and a more relaxed attitude to hallucinogens by a few years.
Everything comes back in fashion, eventually.
Joe Cocker’s first death
the whole of the 90's. i was elbow deep in shitty nappies and baby sick mostly. and worked nights the whole decade.
work, babies and toddlers, short sleep, work, repeat.
Everything between 2000 and 2010.
I was er, busy.
Some **** on Pistonheads posted that the 80's were a guilt free time of prosperity for all.
I missed that, as all the major employers in North Manchester closed down, people turned to food banks, heroin dealers thrived and communities were destroyed.
Also totally missed the Diana mourning thing as lived abroad. Watched from afar bemused.
I missed most of it, I was on a mountain bike holiday around the Parc du Volcans in France, staying in various gîtes, only one had English people running it and we sat bemused watching the news on their telly. Sitting in a taxi between the station having just got back on Eurostar and heading towards Paddington, seeing all the stuff left around by mourners was enough to make me very glad I’d been away from the hysteria.
lso totally missed the Diana mourning thing
I was in a farmhouse in New Hampshire surrounded by Americans but with a few 'Limeys.' We watched the news somewhat bemused, but mainly excited to see some British TV after a couple of months abroad!
Next morning at Boston airport people were huddling around the TVs - women in tears. We genuinely couldn't believe people were that interested.
I was in LA for the funeral... a mate and I stayed up and watched it on TV with Sam Adams beer as entertainment.
Joe Cocker’s... death
Wait - what?!?
The birth of rave.
I went to Australia in December 89 and Kensington market was comfortably goth black.
Come back 6 months later and it’s all day glo.
I was sad.
I'm with you muffin man.
The rave scene didn't pass me by. I activity avoided it. Thought the 'music' for raves was total shiiite. I still do.
I was white water paddling, skydiving, and going to pubs that sold beer which had flavour and could talk to mates and prospective Mrsssses.
Oh yeas and listening to Extreme, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, and a lot of other American based rock.
I saw Thunder last year as my 1st real big gig in the post-covid-plague world 🤘. Fabulous.
Princess Di meeting her untimely end.
I was super hung over, wander down the road to find some high calorie scran and loads of A Boards with the headline Diana is Dead, all I could think was "Who the hell is Diana?".
I went to France with school in 87 on a twin town exchange. Got back home to lots of fuss about a young Richard Astley not wanting to give something up
Berlin wall coming down
Yeah, I'd got it in my head to go to Berlin, stand on top of it, but then got waylaid by other things and a few months later people were doing just that.
Maybe there's a joint enterprise thing going on.subconsciously.
7/7 terrorist attacks.
I was on a tiny island in the middle of the White Nile in Uganda when I heard some vague news about it.
No phones/Internet or anything, heard very, very little about what craziness was happening in the rest of the world, so went boating some more.
The whole britpop/Oasis thing. Never really listened to radio much and was in to the whole grunge, Beastie Boys and underground hip-hop thing. Eventually heard folk raving about this British band, gave them a listen and thought they were awful, still do.
Berlin Wall coming down.
I was living on a beach in the Dom Rep and windsurfing/drinking for a fortnight.
29inches
27.5inches
29inches again
I sneezed and missed Liz Truss’s premiership
I was probably a bit young at the time (10 I think) but the miners strike. Living in Sheffield you’d have thought I’d be surrounded by it but I lived in the west of the city so not one of the mining communities.
My future wife on the other hand lived less than half a mile from Orgreave and her dad worked down the pit so it completely occupied her household.
After it finished I do remember talk of Arthur Scargill and subsequently my dad telling me about it (one of his colleagues was the woman in the well known photo of a mounted policeman taking a swipe at her).
The Pipa Alpha disaster was the first time I realised I'd missed some major event. I'd been away on my first big trip as a yoof to the Verdon Gorge climbing for a month after finishing college. Came home and wondered what 'everyone' was talking about.
As far as rave and Brit pop and all that I didn't miss it, I just didn't give a shit about that sort of stuff.
The rave scene didn’t pass me by. I activity avoided it. Thought the ‘music’ for raves was total shiiite. I still do.
TBH me and my m8s had nice cars and didn’t want to park them in some muddy field in the middle of nowhere.
I sneezed and missed Liz Truss’s premiership
I suppose the trouble is that some people will be still feeling it 🙁
I think a lot of the stuff we’ve gone thru recently will be iconic or notorious moments in history that the full impact doesn’t surface until further down the line 🙂
(Doomsplaning)
Food banks in the 80s? I'm not saying there wasn't any but it must have been a very small number compared to today, 7/7 I vaguely remember it being on the tv in the bar of La Boomerang in Les Gets
Food banks in the 80s? Not that I can remember, and I lived in a fairly poor area in the north east on free school dinners for the first half of the 80s.
Miners strike
At the time, as a school kid in the home counties, it was foreign news.
Ten years later I was living in Fallin, near Stirling- home to Polmaise colliery.
Polmaise was the first pit out and the last pit back. It was also the only pit that didn't need a picket line.
A friend was on a climbing holiday in France over September 11th 2001 and had consumed no media so he'd no idea it had happened.
The whole track pumping up a milky penguin with a badger thing or whatever it was, on here 😂
pretty much anything between mid eighties and mid nineties, if it wasn't to do with trash metal or motorbikes then I had no interest
I sneezed and missed Liz Truss’s premiership
im proud to say i never knew what our PM looked like all the time she was in post.
we were on crete at the time and taverna owners were telling us about the change in PM, but as i actively try to avoid the papers and the news, i was only vaguely aware of 2 or 3 faceless (to me) goons vying for position.
when we got home and people were talking about it i realised that i didnt actually know what our prime minister looked like, so it became a bit of a joke and also a bit of a quest to go as long as possible without knowing.
it was a few weeks after she'd gone when i accidentally saw her face on a facebook post.
Miners strike
At the time, as a school kid in the home counties, it was foreign news.
Sad to say this was me. Living relatively comfortably near Peterborough, with parents who'd left mining areas in the 50s and were doing alright for themselves in Thatchers Britain.
A few years later I worked with a guy my own age from Doncaster who was able to explain all I'd missed.
Anything to do with the Royal Family. I really couldn't give two shits.
These are massive events in our country's history, but they pass me by.
I sneezed and missed Liz Truss’s premiership
I suppose the trouble is that some people will be still feeling it 🙁
sorry, I’d run out of tissues.
Most sporting events, e.g. following italia '90 or whenever penalties by hearing roaring from the pubs we were walking between. A thatcher victory when living overseas and trying to ignore it. Other than that not much it would seem, political or cultural, oh, apart from the iconic occasion when Bob Holness first laid down the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s hit single Baker Street.
I went to NYC a few years ago hoping to visit the Twin Towers, I never knew they had taken them down.
Other than that not much it would seem, political or cultural, oh, apart from the iconic occasion when Bob Holness first laid down the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s hit single Baker Street.
I'm sorry but you've failed the audition for our Pop Trivia pub quiz team. We wish you luck in your future endeavours. 🙂
Death of the Queen. Sad for her family but, I don’t really care.
The fact that you consider it an iconic moment suggests to the contrary.
Went to a work conference in London, next morning got to the tram and it was closed, tried to get on a bus and couldn't because everything was weird, so started to walk from the hotel back to Euston, it was only when I got closer to Euston and saw people stood outside office buildings with the news on the reception TVs that I realised I'd missed being in a major terrorist incident (7/7). spent about 5hrs just stood outside Euston waiting for the trains to start again
Also saw the Manchester Bomb mushroom cloud from a salford flat window, glad I was nowhere near that, it was bloody loud even from 4miles away
Anything to do with the Royal Family. I really couldn’t give two shits.
These are massive events in our country’s history, but they pass me by.
They're really not, generate a lot of space in papers, but they don't really have any actual affect on UK PLC.
More just like a real life soap opera or reality show which never ends....
I was probably a bit young at the time (10 I think) but the miners strike. Living in Sheffield you’d have thought I’d be surrounded by it but I lived in the west of the city so not one of the mining communities.
I was 16 and very aware of what I was seeing on the news but it didn't impact on my life at all. I remember that there were food collections in the city centre, but it really felt like foreign news to me. I'm not sure how close the nearest active pit was to us, but we only lived 20 miles from the Rhondda Valley - I'm guessing that the closest striking pit may have been well within 10 miles. That's the beauty of being a teenager, I guess. WW3 could happen and you're only interested in acne cream and whether Sharon Jones fancies you. 😀
food banks galore in the yorkshire mining villages in the early 80's,pre and post strike.
Flew back from a week's holiday in Turkey in the early hours of September 11th, 2001.
Went to bed and woke up mid-afternoon to some rather major news.
I was a news journalist at the time, but didn't mind having missed the biggest story of the century (so far).
food banks galore in the yorkshire mining villages in the early 80’s,pre and post strike.
Weren't those just to support the striking miners though, not the general population?
I don't recall food banks being much of a thing back then.
I'm so old I don't think anything has.
Missed the first Covid lockdown. I was in at Maol-bhuidhe bothy when it happened. No radio or phone signal. Found out when I got back to the car a couple of days later. Very odd drive back home. Never saw a car going the same way between Shiel Bridge of Spean Bridge.
I missed that point in history where every social/cultural based thread became a list of humble brags about who was most aloof on topical events.
Yeah, think the miners strikes in the 80s was the one thing that's really passed me by. I was only 8/9 years old though and grew up on a council estate in Leicester. So I suppose it didn't really affect us. Sadly, I'm 46 now and still don't really know what went on....
Went travelling and came back to people banging on about the Royale Family. No idea what they were on about, then realised it was a new hit TV comedy. I couldn't ever get into it after that.
9/11. I was with 2 mates cave diving in northern Spain - very rural area. The cave we had discovered and were exploring had turned pretty nasty and I was convinced one of us was likely not to be coming home and we should really walk away before that happened. We got back to the casa rurale we were using as a base and the farmer dragged us into his house and showed us the TV footage. We at first assumed a movie or something, then realised it was real and thought accident. Then it became obvious two planes had hit, and the word terroristas started being used. One of our number worked for a company with offices in the WTC. Then the footage of the pentagon came on and we thought it was the start of world war 3 - we genuinely didnt know what to do. Next day this put into context what we were doing and risking and we decided to not continue. A few days later I decided on one last dive (it was my turn for a crack at the end) and on that dive found the end of the cave. My wife had flown out for a few days and all flights were cancelled so she had to ride back to the UK squashed in our overloaded van sat on top of a pile of oxygen and helium tanks! Coming back through Dover felt like reaching home and safety in so many ways. So I didn't exactly miss the event, but it was a pretty strange perspective of it.
Went travelling and came back to people banging on about the Royale Family. No idea what they were on about, then realised it was a new hit TV comedy
Not moments in history, but MrsMC did a year with VSO in Russia in 97/8, and missed the Spice Girls and the Teletubbies. She was there for Diana's death though. They tried to make her take a week off in mourning.
Amazing how many folk on here missed Diana's death. Here's my alibi for the event 🙂
I was on a bus to Poland for a week and caught a bit of it later in the week, but was glad to be away from the UK. Tour guide broke the news and looked heart broken, I think my girlfriend at the time laughed...
Thought the ‘music’ for raves was total shiiite. I still do.
See, the music was yes, made for raves. So, if you didn’t do raves…well. Obvious innit.
The appeal of crap like Extreme, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Thunder certainly passed me by, but I was never a long haired geek banging my head with a bunch of other boys in black t-shirts.
I did miss rave too, but not Diana’s death or the Twin Towers, can remember exactly where I was when they happened. Live Aid I was on the beach and used Live Aid chat to talk to some young girls. Slightly too young as it turned out, eh Tim! 😳
I was living in a shitty bedsit in Brighouse when Diana died. Been out on the piss in Huddersfield, got back about 3am and turned the telly on whilst eating a kebab and saw it. The following week for the funeral is the quietest I've ever known the roads in this country.
9/11 I was at work for Yorkshire Electric in Seacroft Leeds. Didn't really understand what was going on or the scale until I got home later that day.
Amazing how many folk on here missed Diana’s death.
I was at a road race somewhere out in Kent. Mid way through the race, fairly steady in the bunch and a guy rolls up alongside and says "hey did you hear that Princess Diana has died?"
I was like - what kind of idiot do you take me for, you're about to attack and you're trying to distract people with shit like that.
Back at the village hall after the race and word was still going around about it then in the car on the way back we put the radio on. At the time it was still fairly early on Sunday morning so the radio channels were still lining up "important people to talk to" and were having to settle for phone in crap - and now we have Brenda from Walthamstow on the line - "oh it's shocking, oh I'm so sad" repeated all the way home.
I went for a ride on the day of her funeral. Roads were deserted.
The appeal of crap like Extreme, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Thunder certainly passed me by, but I was never a long haired geek banging my head with a bunch of other boys in black t-shirts.
*Reports post*
I was at a road race somewhere out in Kent. Mid way through the race, fairly steady in the bunch and a guy rolls up alongside and says “hey did you hear that Princess Diana has died?”
What time did the race start - it was TV and radio were all over it from about 3am