Does anyone else pronounce these things "meh may"? - I never get the Dawkins connection at first!

Roses and Jessamine has asked me to answer this lot :-

"Where were you and what were you doing at...?"

1. JFK's Assassination 22/11/1963
Poking my baby brother in the eye? Playing with dollies? Annoying my older siblings? No idea!

2. England vs Germany World Cup Semi-Final 4/7/1990
Now if you'd asked me about the 1966 England vs Germany World Cup Final, well, I can distinctly remember watching it from behind two armchairs (presumably the front row was taken up by male members of the family) and feeling very excited because England had won! By 1990 I was far too spiritual to be worrying about such earthly matters!

3. Margaret Thatcher's Resignation 22/11/1990
Probably still floating on my spiritual cloud, but I felt immense relief that she'd gone and I'd be able to watch the news without having to stick my fingers in my ears every time she spoke.
4. Princess Diana's Death 31/8/1997
At my parent's house in Bristol. Early morning I came downstairs and my father, a newsaholic, had heard about it and told me - I didn't really believe him at first. I remember seeing her coffin brought through the streets of Northampton, (we lived there then) on its way to her final resting place.

5. Attack on Twin Towers 9/11/2001
At our house in Bristol. My sister had been shopping at the nearby Mall, and had seen news coverage of it on the TV s for sale in the shops. She came to tell us. We didn't have tv, but we managed to get the news coverage from the internet. We spent a lot of time shielding our young son from the in your face coverage of it (he's never been allowed to watch the news). I was glad a couple of years later that we had, when with a group of young children who were about the same age as him, it was obvious that it had impinged on their lives in an unhealthy way. He knows about such things, but not from seeing the horrific visual imagery.

6. Election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the Papacy 19/4/2005
At Mum and Dad's again, in Bristol - 'cos I saw something on the telly, and we didn't have one! I was so relieved. I had been reading his "Spirit of the Liturgy", and gradually turning into a rampant Traditionalist over the previous six months - it seemed a real answer to prayer.


I think most of the people I know have done this already, so whoever wants to, feel free to consider yourselves tagged.