Where were you?
Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 9:00 It was the Daily Mail’s Robert Hardman, I think, speaking on BBC Radio, who said the Queen’s death was a ‘Where were you?’ moment.
There haven’t been many ‘Where were you?’ moments in my life. Offhand I can think of only four - the assassination of Robert Kennedy (1968), the murder of John Lennon (1980), the death of Princess Diana (1997) and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (2001).
The scale of the horror of 9/11 sets it apart from the others but all four ‘events’ are united by the fact that they came as a huge shock and were tragic for those involved.
Given the Queen’s age and reports of her declining health this was neither a shock nor a tragedy. She lived a long, extraordinarily full life and died peacefully at home in a place she loved.
Hardman is nevertheless right. Her death was a ‘Where were you?’ moment.
I was in a Glasgow hotel room when the formal announcement was made on television but the impending news had been hinted at all afternoon so it merely confirmed what many of us already suspected.
I was in Glasgow because I was due to appear on a live current affairs programme, STV’s Scotland Tonight, at 8.30.
They wanted to discuss the Scottish Government’s ambition to be ‘smoke free’ by 2034 and although I could have done it from a studio in London or Cambridge I volunteered to go to Glasgow because I think it’s better if you’re in the same studio as the presenter and other guests.
(In addition my mother-in-law lives in Glasgow so I could visit her at the same time, and I could also spend the weekend in Dundee, where United were playing Hibs.)
News of the Queen’s deteriorating health was initially reported on the radio around midday, maybe later, while I was driving up.
At that point I’m not sure I took it too seriously, if I’m honest. How many times in recent months had we been told that the Queen had mobility issues, and only two days earlier she had been photographed, smiling broadly and shaking the hand of the new prime minister Liz Truss.
I arrived in Glasgow early afternoon by which time it was being reported that other members of the Royal Family were on their way to Balmoral, which didn’t sound good.
At four o’clock I had a pre-arranged telephone call with Rona Dougall, the Scotland Tonight presenter, to discuss the programme which in the absence of any further news about the Queen was still scheduled to go ahead as planned.
She told me though that the BBC’s presenters were already wearing black ties and if anything happened in the next few hours all scheduled programmes would be off as broadcasters switched to ‘automated’ mode (ie programming that had been planned and rehearsed years in advance).
When the announcement came, around 6.30, I was watching the news in my hotel room.
A few minutes later I got a call to say the scheduled Scotland Tonight programme had been cancelled, although they might return to the subject in a couple of weeks (when I will be abroad!).
On Friday morning I stuck to my plan and drove to Dundee for the match on Saturday. (It was too late anyway to cancel my hotel booking.)
Shortly after I arrived it was announced that all weekend football matches in England and Scotland had been postponed.
Although I understood the reasons I thought it was the wrong decision. As David Walsh, the Sunday Times’ chief sports writer, commented today, football was so afraid of doing the wrong thing it failed to do the right thing.
So there I was, in Dundee, with an unexpected day to fill.
To be continued …
Reader Comments (5)
We were packing up our tent after three soggy days camping in torrential rain in Stokes Bay when my brother rang to tell me that the queen was not well and the outcome was not good.
I had no WiFi to check on her progress as we travelled back but just a few minutes after we got home, the news was announced that she had died.
I was living in Wales, at home with a baby, and lighting a coal fire in the hearth when I heard the news about John Lennon.
I don't recall hearing about the death of Robert Kennedy and as an 8 year old, I probably didn't know who he was. But of course I remember hearing about 9/11. I was working at home in my office when my daughter, who worked in a pub around the corner, rang to tell me what had happened so I joined her and we watched the awful tragedy unfold live on the pub's TV.
I also remember where I was when Elvis died, and when Marc Bolan died in September 1977.
I was nine when Robert Kennedy died. I remember it because I was at school having lunch when the headmaster came in and announced that Kennedy had died after being shot. It was shocking because although I was too young to remember the moment JFK was killed (in 1963) the family was still big news. It was also shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King but I’m still not sure why the headmaster felt the need to break such the news to pupils, none of whom were over 11!
Having just remembered that the man who shot Robert Kennedy was Sirhan Sirhan, I must recall something about the event. The name of the assassin stuck with me because I thought it strange that someone should have a first name and surname that was the same.
I was watching Liz Truss's statement on freezing the cost of energy on the Parliament channel, Keir Starmer was just replying when I saw a note being passed round and people looking very anxious and shocked.
Moment Liz Truss and MPs were told of the Queen’s ill-health
8th Sept
"Initial indication something was wrong came as Nadhim Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, began urgently speaking to the PM"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/09/08/watch-moment-liz-truss-mps-told-queens-ill-health/
I worried even more the next day when I heard that the family had been called to Balmoral,
You know that one day it will happen but its all a great shock and very, very sad when it does.
‘Where were you?’ moments in my life: only 3 (or 4).
The world the day before and after the death of Neil Armstrong, Mikhail Gorbachev or Osama Bin Laden were the same; the day they died was just another day nobody really remembers. However, the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin wall and the 9/11 attack shaped the world and you knew the moment it happened these days would be a turning point in history.
Moreover, the same will apply to Bill Gates which brings me to my 4th ‘Where were you?’ moment : the release of Windows 95, although we only realised much later this was a historic turning point, so I do not remember where I was on august 24, but I remember the installation CD came with a T-shirt.