stonerblue
Well-Known Member
Decent footballer an' all..
Death (not family/friends) impacted on you
- Thread starter Idesofmarch69
- Start date
Ourman
Well-Known Member
For me it was Tom Petty's death.
My wife and I had a list of gigs in descending order of importance, the top one for each of us we would pay any amount for tickets, my choice was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
We had decided that after we had paid for our wedding we would travel to America and go shopping in New York, my wife's desire and go to see The Heartbreakers, the whole trip would be planned around going to the gig as they very rarely toured outside the US.
The year of our wedding, we discovered that they were playing Hyde Park, on their 40th anniversary tour, two weeks before our big day. That year we had cleaned out our savings as our car died requiring a new one, put in a new bathroom and of course paid for our wedding and fortnights honeymoon in Cuba. There was no money for concerts.
But it was top of my list and so it was a money no object deal, I came home the day after the tickets were put on sale to find two, for the gold circle, already bought for me by my soon to be wife. The gig was fantastic, I also got to see Stevie Nick's on the same bill.
Then after the tour Tom passed away, if we'd have waited, as was our plan I'd have never got to see him live. That seemed to make his death affect me much more than other artists who have died that I was a fan of.
My wife and I had a list of gigs in descending order of importance, the top one for each of us we would pay any amount for tickets, my choice was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
We had decided that after we had paid for our wedding we would travel to America and go shopping in New York, my wife's desire and go to see The Heartbreakers, the whole trip would be planned around going to the gig as they very rarely toured outside the US.
The year of our wedding, we discovered that they were playing Hyde Park, on their 40th anniversary tour, two weeks before our big day. That year we had cleaned out our savings as our car died requiring a new one, put in a new bathroom and of course paid for our wedding and fortnights honeymoon in Cuba. There was no money for concerts.
But it was top of my list and so it was a money no object deal, I came home the day after the tickets were put on sale to find two, for the gold circle, already bought for me by my soon to be wife. The gig was fantastic, I also got to see Stevie Nick's on the same bill.
Then after the tour Tom passed away, if we'd have waited, as was our plan I'd have never got to see him live. That seemed to make his death affect me much more than other artists who have died that I was a fan of.
dobingsdobber
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 3,131
Hendrix.Stayed in my room for two days,even missed a City home game.
Harlaching Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 8 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 547
Not a single person and I can not pretend I knew anyone even indirectly effected but 11th September 2001 really knocked me sideways and effected me in such a way I could not get out of bed for days and found my way crying watching tele and listening to radio...think I was grieving for humanity rather than individuals.
Sadness and shock of two that spring to mind were Caroline Aherne and just recently Shane Warne. Shane being the reason I can never pick up an apple without giving it a good rip and a twirl. Caroline for just being a comedy genius that Ive only just started to appreciated. She brought out our family humor onto the Tele.
Rob Collins keyboard player from the Charlatans was another as Id only met him a month before his fatal car crash, RIP to all.
Sadness and shock of two that spring to mind were Caroline Aherne and just recently Shane Warne. Shane being the reason I can never pick up an apple without giving it a good rip and a twirl. Caroline for just being a comedy genius that Ive only just started to appreciated. She brought out our family humor onto the Tele.
Rob Collins keyboard player from the Charlatans was another as Id only met him a month before his fatal car crash, RIP to all.
kaz7
Well-Known Member
Yep 9/11 still haunts me every year , when i watch the doco's i cry , not ashamed to say it rips my heart out , at the time i was in the midst of a breakdown , the two things will always be entwined
For me it has to be the Arena attack. I've never been impacted by anything similar to the extent I was impacted by that, not before or since. When it happened I was right outside the Arena in a taxi on my way back home from visiting a friend in Hulme. At the time I lived in the blocks of flats between Angel Meadow and the Marble Arch pub, just off Rochdale Road. The cab was at the four-way junction where Trinity Way meets Bury New Road and Victoria Street.
Something felt really odd.
Even after a normal gig, when there are thousands of people in the streets and t-shirt vendors in the road, you can still drive right past the Arena and over the railway bridge. But there was absolutely no way to get through the crowd this time. There were no t-shirt vendors around and the crowd wasn't happily loitering like always, people were just speed-walking away from the Arena and paying zero attention to the traffic.
The cab driver managed to (slowly) find a route through people, behind the snooker hall and round the back of the Green Quarter. As we crept through the little side streets, all I could see were groups of kids in pink Ariana Grande t-shirts standing in groups, crying. There were parents with two and three phones in their hands, calling, waiting, getting no answer from whoever was at the other end, then calling again.
At the time I didn't think too much of it. Something felt strange but my mind just didn't jump to "a bomb's gone off". I got back in my flat just before 11 that night and made some food for myself. I turned my laptop on. The first post in my social media feed was from my building's Facebook group: "Just heard a loud bang coming from Victoria, hope everyone's okay?" So I immediately went onto Twitter and searched for news coming from Victoria station.
I expected there to have been an electrical failure on the train or tram lines, or a train crash. Anything but what had actually happened. A girl I'd known at school was tweeting from inside the Arena: "If anyone thinks there's been a stampede or that a balloon has exploded, you're wrong". I remember being in denial for a couple of hours. Then that GMP statement was posted on Twitter and my heart sank.
I don't think I slept that night. I went to bed at about 4am and got 2/3 hours at most, and even that was broken up. I was due to meet @Rascal the next morning at the Waldorf. I remember setting off, going past the Angel Pub, the Crowne Plaza, through the Northern Quarter. It was like somebody had finally shut Manchester up. No traffic around the Arena, just police officers, journalists on smoking breaks, and police tape flickering in the wind.
The volume of the city was significantly, eerily reduced. @Rascal can vouch for how shaken up I was. I remember him and another former Bluemooner having to talk me round a bit and carry on with the day.
And then the news spread worldwide. People like Donald Trump were spreading awareness about the #PrayForManchester hashtag. The American president was discussing something that had happened in my postcode, round the corner from my flat, inside a building I'd been outside of when it happened. I tried as hard as I could to distance myself from it because it wasn't "my tragedy", but I just couldn't do it. I was dazed for weeks.
Then the identities of the victims started coming through. It turned out a good friend of mine was close with Martyn Hett. There's a text from my friend still out there in the ether somewhere ("Heard about the Arena news, you ok? x") that Martin never got to read. And Saffie, the 8-year-old girl, was related (by a previous marriage) to a work colleague. The way the media hounded that family bothered me for months afterwards.
Things got worse when I found out people I knew had briefly been at school with the attacker. He was a Manchester lad that a lot of people knew; a work colleague of mine had briefly been at the same mosque; the police raided a building I walked past about twice a week. I tried to put it all out of my mind and maintain a level of distance but the degrees of separation were far too close. The whole thing knocked me for six.
Over that summer I found myself staring out the window at the empty roads around the Arena. I used to walk as far as where the Ducie Bridge pub used to be, opposite the CIS building, and just stand there, looking. When the public were allowed to walk past Victoria station again, I used to stare up at the foyer where the bomb had gone off every time I went past and think about going to the McDonald's there to get breakfast for an old girlfriend.
I'm not a mawkish person, and the deaths in my life have just kinda rolled off me because I'm quite philosophical about it all, but the Arena attack changed something in me for months afterwards. I attended all the minutes silences, visited all the flower displays, watched the benefit concert on TV and cried. I felt guilty on some level because I hadn't actually been there and experienced it, but I couldn't stop feeling so awful about it.
I still functioned, still started a new job, still carried on with my life, but I couldn't get my head around it at all. It felt too surreal. I think I only got over it when I moved back out to Stockport, where I've stayed ever since. I think I got too close to Manchester as a city in the six years I lived there and I ended up taking the Arena bombing more personally than I should have. I'll never emotionally overcome that morning after - probably the eeriest day of my life.
EDIT: Just found my trip on Uber from that night. You can see on the map where the cab goes up Trinity Way as normal, then has to find a way around through the Green Quarter because of how many people were just stood in the street.
Something felt really odd.
Even after a normal gig, when there are thousands of people in the streets and t-shirt vendors in the road, you can still drive right past the Arena and over the railway bridge. But there was absolutely no way to get through the crowd this time. There were no t-shirt vendors around and the crowd wasn't happily loitering like always, people were just speed-walking away from the Arena and paying zero attention to the traffic.
The cab driver managed to (slowly) find a route through people, behind the snooker hall and round the back of the Green Quarter. As we crept through the little side streets, all I could see were groups of kids in pink Ariana Grande t-shirts standing in groups, crying. There were parents with two and three phones in their hands, calling, waiting, getting no answer from whoever was at the other end, then calling again.
At the time I didn't think too much of it. Something felt strange but my mind just didn't jump to "a bomb's gone off". I got back in my flat just before 11 that night and made some food for myself. I turned my laptop on. The first post in my social media feed was from my building's Facebook group: "Just heard a loud bang coming from Victoria, hope everyone's okay?" So I immediately went onto Twitter and searched for news coming from Victoria station.
I expected there to have been an electrical failure on the train or tram lines, or a train crash. Anything but what had actually happened. A girl I'd known at school was tweeting from inside the Arena: "If anyone thinks there's been a stampede or that a balloon has exploded, you're wrong". I remember being in denial for a couple of hours. Then that GMP statement was posted on Twitter and my heart sank.
I don't think I slept that night. I went to bed at about 4am and got 2/3 hours at most, and even that was broken up. I was due to meet @Rascal the next morning at the Waldorf. I remember setting off, going past the Angel Pub, the Crowne Plaza, through the Northern Quarter. It was like somebody had finally shut Manchester up. No traffic around the Arena, just police officers, journalists on smoking breaks, and police tape flickering in the wind.
The volume of the city was significantly, eerily reduced. @Rascal can vouch for how shaken up I was. I remember him and another former Bluemooner having to talk me round a bit and carry on with the day.
And then the news spread worldwide. People like Donald Trump were spreading awareness about the #PrayForManchester hashtag. The American president was discussing something that had happened in my postcode, round the corner from my flat, inside a building I'd been outside of when it happened. I tried as hard as I could to distance myself from it because it wasn't "my tragedy", but I just couldn't do it. I was dazed for weeks.
Then the identities of the victims started coming through. It turned out a good friend of mine was close with Martyn Hett. There's a text from my friend still out there in the ether somewhere ("Heard about the Arena news, you ok? x") that Martin never got to read. And Saffie, the 8-year-old girl, was related (by a previous marriage) to a work colleague. The way the media hounded that family bothered me for months afterwards.
Things got worse when I found out people I knew had briefly been at school with the attacker. He was a Manchester lad that a lot of people knew; a work colleague of mine had briefly been at the same mosque; the police raided a building I walked past about twice a week. I tried to put it all out of my mind and maintain a level of distance but the degrees of separation were far too close. The whole thing knocked me for six.
Over that summer I found myself staring out the window at the empty roads around the Arena. I used to walk as far as where the Ducie Bridge pub used to be, opposite the CIS building, and just stand there, looking. When the public were allowed to walk past Victoria station again, I used to stare up at the foyer where the bomb had gone off every time I went past and think about going to the McDonald's there to get breakfast for an old girlfriend.
I'm not a mawkish person, and the deaths in my life have just kinda rolled off me because I'm quite philosophical about it all, but the Arena attack changed something in me for months afterwards. I attended all the minutes silences, visited all the flower displays, watched the benefit concert on TV and cried. I felt guilty on some level because I hadn't actually been there and experienced it, but I couldn't stop feeling so awful about it.
I still functioned, still started a new job, still carried on with my life, but I couldn't get my head around it at all. It felt too surreal. I think I only got over it when I moved back out to Stockport, where I've stayed ever since. I think I got too close to Manchester as a city in the six years I lived there and I ended up taking the Arena bombing more personally than I should have. I'll never emotionally overcome that morning after - probably the eeriest day of my life.
EDIT: Just found my trip on Uber from that night. You can see on the map where the cab goes up Trinity Way as normal, then has to find a way around through the Green Quarter because of how many people were just stood in the street.
Last edited:
dobingsdobber
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 3,131
Aw BM, you've re-opened all the old wounds,back in my room again now, see ya Friday.
9/11 was awful, horrendous to watch the live footage but come on, seriously, you couldn't get out of bed ? For days !!
Either you are joining in taking the piss, your Shane Warne, apple comment hints at that but your last para says you ain't.
I really don't understand your post, (if it is serious)