What is the first major news story that you can remember

The Suez Crisis was a topic of conversation in our house.

We have some petrol coupons from a later fuel crisis (when was that?), DH has kept them amidst his other junk treasures.

The Coronation in 1953 - I was 4 or 5. I remember going to a friend of my mum's to watch in on tv but the room was really crowded and I wasn't interested anyway.
I was more excited by the street party and wearing my new white dress and red, white and blue cardigan - both made by my darling mum.

The King dying. We were told in school. Then some time later going to Caerphilly to see the new Queen pass through.

Mine also was the Munich air crash Greyduster I would be 9 years old and I remember how upset my Scottish Grandmother (who was my guardian) was about the Busby Babes. I have the book. Have you read it?

I remember reading a newspaper headline about 'The Pound in Your Pocket...' and asking my Grandpa what it meant. I think that was Harold Wilson but I don't know the year.

Otherwise, it was the assassination of JFK. My mum had been rushed into hospital with acute appendicitis at the same time and the two events have always been muddled up together in my mind.

I was vaguely aware of the coronation as I had a new pair of white socks with red and blue stripes at the ankle but my first real news memory is the Suez crisis.

Aberfan. I can still picture the newspaper report in my head.
Also JFK and Dunblane.
I was sitting in my classroom marking with the radio on, when the news came on about Dunblane. I'll never forget it.

Jfk Iwas 7 and visiting my grandma withmy dad. I was playing in the back gardennin the shed which was an old railway compartment ( in Swindon) and trying to avoid having to use the outside toilet!

My first news memories are images of the war in Vietnam. I saw them on a colour TV which means it must have been after 1967 because we didn't get a colour TV until that year.

Interesting question. I think it was probably the birth of Prince Charles in 1948 when I was 8. Before that I knew about the war in a vague way, and knew Winston Churchill was important, because when I was 7 we looked round the Houses of Parliament and I kept asking where Winston Churchill sat.

I remember seeing photos of Mussolini on the front page and also Monty and Churchill but not the stories which went with the photos.
I remember the pictures of the flags, happy people dancing and the end of the war. We had a party in the work mens' club round the corner where my dad went for the Home Guard.
I remember the photo of the King standing in the cold wind at the Airport when Elizabeth and Philip went to Africa and the change a few days later when she walked down aircraft steps wearing black.
When Kennedy was shot I had that morning taken DD home from Queen Charlotte's hospital - she was 10 days old.

The death of King George V1. We were told at school, I was nearly 9. The next event I remember is the coronation in 1953, the day after my 10th birthday. Did anyone else have a little golden coach and horses to play with?
Whenever we have a thread like this, I keep expecting Printmiss to post. I miss her a lot.

Earthquakes in Persia in 1947 when I was just 4. I know that sounds barking, but the news readers talked about people being evacuated from the area and I immediately had this mental picture that an earthquake was an oxygen cylinder shaped object in a deep pit with men in grey all-in-ones and tin hats having to get to it and do something to it to make sure it didn't explode.

I was born and lived in south London towards the end of the war when the V1 and V2s were being fired and landing around us and, if one landed without exploding, the civil defence in grey overalls and tin hats immediately took charge and evacuated people from surrounding properties. I had no idea what evacuated meant at that young age, I just associated it with unexploded bombs and when the word was used in a different context assumed an earthquake was some type of explosive device.

callgirl1, I still have my little golden coach and horses from the Coronation!

My first thought on seeing the question was "You've never had it so good.", as part of an election campaign. Googling it shows that it must have been in 1959, when I was 7.

I also remember Aberfan, JFK and my brother staying up in the middle of the night arguing with my mother that the moon landing was history being made, while she tried to make him go to bed.

I was going to say the end of the Vietnam war. We had just moved to Spain and we only had a radio, and my father kept listening to news about Vietnam. I suppose it must have been the end of the war, because we moved in 1972, I was around six
. Then I remembered the moon landing, I was four at the time, and remember thinking it was very boring watching these funny men, walking so slowly on the moon!

I have vague memories of the Cuban missile crisis. What I remember most is the all prevailing feeling of doom. I think the adults were truly scared. My next was the assignation of JFK.

Did anyone else go to the Festival of Britain on the South Bank (1951)? I remember going and when you came out through the ticket barrier from the train at Waterloo you were more or less at the entrance to the exhibition.
Saw a 3D film there wearing the red and green specs - it was in what was later the Festival Hall.

A Google tells me that A Pound in Your Pocket was 1967 so JFK is my first major news memory.

Glorious Glosters at the battle of the Imjin River, 1951.

It is not the first I remember, but the first news story to have a profound effect on me was the Aberfan disaster. The scale of the loss of life was almost unimaginable in those days, but it was the fact that it was eventually disclosed it had been preventable that stuck with me. I was thirteen years old and in hindsight some of the seeds of my later activism were born that day. I remember the news reporter (possibly Cliff Michelmore?) was visibly distressed as he reported the news.

I think Aberfan for me too, as it resonated with me, being a child, other children dying at school.

Hearing about the Manchester footballers dying on the plane crash as well, and of course the moon landings later on.
Also, Gilbert Harding dying, the adults talked about him a lot.

We didn't have a TV - hardly anybody did in those days where we lived - and although we listened to the radio a lot, I can't remember listening to the news on the radio - so my first memory is from the newspapers & everyone talking about it - and I guess I remember because it is memorable - Brady & Hindley -The Moors Murderers - grim in the extreme. Even today I get a lump in my throat when I think of Lesley Ann Down's mother having to hear the tape of her daughter pleading with those monsters.

Apart from George VI dying and the coronation I think the Munich air disaster was the next news story I really took in.

We were in Aden, I was 11 and we'd stopped at a garage for petrol. I went into the kiosk with Dad to pay where at least half a dozen men were crowded around the radio listening to the local Arabic news station. Their English and our Arabic was just about good enough to give us the gist so when we got back to the car we fished out our small transistor radio that went everywhere with us and tuned into British Forces News which was usually way behind what was happening worldwide.

It was the main topic of conversation for many weeks but I didn't really grasp the scale of the tragedy until years later when I watched a documentary on TV.

I can remember VE night and VJ night as being news stories but I remember a lot about WW2 as I was 2 when it started.
I was married and pregnant when JFK was assassinated and had a small child when Aberfan happened and sitting watching her and wondering how parents coped with that.