Memories of a decade.
31 Dec 2009 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatMemories of a decade. A few days ago ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ozma914 posted his weekly column focussing, this time, on memorable events of the decade. I said, in comments, that I might do the same - so here are the things that I (aided and abetted by Daughter-dear) found came to mind immediately when I thought of the past ten years.
There are two distinct types of 'memorable events' - the 'grand scale', seen on TV, events and the smaller, 'my life' ones. I think I will start with the 'grand scale' - which show it to have been a rather sad decade.
My first mental picture was actually one of the Queen Mother's funeral - at 101 her death in 2002 really did mark the end of... something. A different way of life, I think. And my moment in time is not the cortège, or the service, but her coffin standing in state in Westminster Hall with four, serious, servicemen standing guard, one at each corner. And the picture in my mind is of the when the four soldiers were her four grandsons.
D-d remembered both the month and the year, and watching the funeral on TV in school - so agreed it was one of the memorable events. It was a proper, dignified funeral, such a contrast to Dead Di Day, she says.
We then thought of the attacks on the World Trade Centre - they held a horrifically morbid fascination and we recalled sitting in front of the TV when she got home from school and I got home from work, unable to take our minds off the screen. But we couldn't remember what year it had been - sorry American friends - we even had to take time to work out that it had been September not November, as British media also call the events 9/11 as shorthand, but that, of course, is the 9th of November for us. A quick Google gave us 2001 - and surprised us both as we had guessed 2002... (and what a product of the decade is Googling!)
My next clear mental image is of Rageh Omaar in Baghdad as the air attack began around him - we really had no idea why America was bombing Iraq, or why Tony Blair seemed to think it was a good idea to join in, but Rageh was our hero and our eyes on what was happening.
Almost a part of the same memory is legendary BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson, and his crew, being under attack by American war planes in a 'friendly fire' incident (what a stupid description that is!) and keeping on reporting even as he was lying on the ground injured - until the camera man was killed. That certainly brought home the realities of war. Oh - and also the toppling of that statue in Baghdad and, totally surreally, I remember a man running out of a municipal building clutching a pot-plant.
I began to realise that almost all the big, public, memories are sad and mainly war or terrorist related, as the next thing to my mind, and also next in D-d's list, was the London bombings of 7/7 2005. But not the pictures of the damage, although the image of the bus stays in the mind, but actually the interviews with the people on the streets the next day - especially the elderly gentleman who said something like;
"Terrorists? Call themselves bloody terrorists? Do you see anyone around here who looks terrorised? We've been bombed by the bloody experts we have; Hitler, the IRA... this lot are rank amateurs...!"
After we discussed the London attacks for some time D-d said "Oh! And the idiot who tried to bomb Glasgow airport and got beaten up by Glaswegians as well as setting himself on fire!" I had to admit that I'd almost forgotten that.
The last thing I really remember as a defining moment of the decade was 6th July 2005 - London being awarded the 2012 Olympics - I think it was the only big Good News story of the decade.
Also, oddly, all my 'big memories' are from 2005 or earlier. Perhaps my short-term memory is going?
And then there were the personal memories of the decade
Biggest memory - standing outside a shoe-shop in York when D-d rang to tell me she had got a First in her degree.
Other big memories - D-d getting her A level results, and D-d's graduation!
The other abiding memory of the decade is actually sitting in my car, at the side of the road in Governor's Hill, taking a phone call from my mother in which she said, with some difficulty, that she thought that she had had a stroke. She was right. And she went from being an incredibly active 75 year old to an elderly disabled lady in, well, a stroke. But she is still living alone, still doing her best to live life to the fullest she can, and I am glad that she is still with us.
Actually - I have become the in-between generation - a mother and a daughter.
I am still also a wife - and S2c is the permanent rock in my life - although he never featured solo in the really big memories, he is just so much part of life that I cannot begin to visualise it without him.
He led me to my other really big memory of the past decade - which really is of making my first post on Live journal, after he had been a member for some time. I have learnt so much about other people's lives, in the best possible way, and made some real, genuine, good friends in this place.
He also encouraged me to start writing fanfic - a wonderful hobby - nah - not hobby, it's more a lifestyle!
This has led to a decrease in the production of hand-knitted jumpers etc to zero, I fear, in the second half of the decade...
Anyway - here's to the next ten years, people -
Or, in English,
glitter-graphics.com
ozma914 posted his weekly column focussing, this time, on memorable events of the decade. I said, in comments, that I might do the same - so here are the things that I (aided and abetted by Daughter-dear) found came to mind immediately when I thought of the past ten years.There are two distinct types of 'memorable events' - the 'grand scale', seen on TV, events and the smaller, 'my life' ones. I think I will start with the 'grand scale' - which show it to have been a rather sad decade.
My first mental picture was actually one of the Queen Mother's funeral - at 101 her death in 2002 really did mark the end of... something. A different way of life, I think. And my moment in time is not the cortège, or the service, but her coffin standing in state in Westminster Hall with four, serious, servicemen standing guard, one at each corner. And the picture in my mind is of the when the four soldiers were her four grandsons.
D-d remembered both the month and the year, and watching the funeral on TV in school - so agreed it was one of the memorable events. It was a proper, dignified funeral, such a contrast to Dead Di Day, she says.
We then thought of the attacks on the World Trade Centre - they held a horrifically morbid fascination and we recalled sitting in front of the TV when she got home from school and I got home from work, unable to take our minds off the screen. But we couldn't remember what year it had been - sorry American friends - we even had to take time to work out that it had been September not November, as British media also call the events 9/11 as shorthand, but that, of course, is the 9th of November for us. A quick Google gave us 2001 - and surprised us both as we had guessed 2002... (and what a product of the decade is Googling!)
My next clear mental image is of Rageh Omaar in Baghdad as the air attack began around him - we really had no idea why America was bombing Iraq, or why Tony Blair seemed to think it was a good idea to join in, but Rageh was our hero and our eyes on what was happening.
Almost a part of the same memory is legendary BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson, and his crew, being under attack by American war planes in a 'friendly fire' incident (what a stupid description that is!) and keeping on reporting even as he was lying on the ground injured - until the camera man was killed. That certainly brought home the realities of war. Oh - and also the toppling of that statue in Baghdad and, totally surreally, I remember a man running out of a municipal building clutching a pot-plant.
I began to realise that almost all the big, public, memories are sad and mainly war or terrorist related, as the next thing to my mind, and also next in D-d's list, was the London bombings of 7/7 2005. But not the pictures of the damage, although the image of the bus stays in the mind, but actually the interviews with the people on the streets the next day - especially the elderly gentleman who said something like;
"Terrorists? Call themselves bloody terrorists? Do you see anyone around here who looks terrorised? We've been bombed by the bloody experts we have; Hitler, the IRA... this lot are rank amateurs...!"
After we discussed the London attacks for some time D-d said "Oh! And the idiot who tried to bomb Glasgow airport and got beaten up by Glaswegians as well as setting himself on fire!" I had to admit that I'd almost forgotten that.
The last thing I really remember as a defining moment of the decade was 6th July 2005 - London being awarded the 2012 Olympics - I think it was the only big Good News story of the decade.
Also, oddly, all my 'big memories' are from 2005 or earlier. Perhaps my short-term memory is going?
And then there were the personal memories of the decade
Biggest memory - standing outside a shoe-shop in York when D-d rang to tell me she had got a First in her degree.
Other big memories - D-d getting her A level results, and D-d's graduation!
The other abiding memory of the decade is actually sitting in my car, at the side of the road in Governor's Hill, taking a phone call from my mother in which she said, with some difficulty, that she thought that she had had a stroke. She was right. And she went from being an incredibly active 75 year old to an elderly disabled lady in, well, a stroke. But she is still living alone, still doing her best to live life to the fullest she can, and I am glad that she is still with us.
Actually - I have become the in-between generation - a mother and a daughter.
I am still also a wife - and S2c is the permanent rock in my life - although he never featured solo in the really big memories, he is just so much part of life that I cannot begin to visualise it without him.
He led me to my other really big memory of the past decade - which really is of making my first post on Live journal, after he had been a member for some time. I have learnt so much about other people's lives, in the best possible way, and made some real, genuine, good friends in this place.
He also encouraged me to start writing fanfic - a wonderful hobby - nah - not hobby, it's more a lifestyle!
This has led to a decrease in the production of hand-knitted jumpers etc to zero, I fear, in the second half of the decade...
Anyway - here's to the next ten years, people -
Or, in English,
glitter-graphics.com
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:31 pm (UTC)Personal and family things, though, do seem to stick more in the mind. Like you, I entered the decade with a not-quite teenager, and end it with an assertive young woman I am proud to think of as a friend as well as a daughter. Actually, double that. I think me girls are my greatest achievement of this or any decade.
I started the decade as a sysop on a Mensa forum I now rarely visit. But my online life has become immeasurably richer through LJ - and the delight of meeting LJ friends in RL is an abiding joy.
no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:43 pm (UTC)Oddly enough I don't really remember Blair going so much as Brown coming - and being greeted by the rather poor attempts at bomb attacks - not only Glasgow but the guy who left his bomb outside a nightclub in London and the car was towed away!
(And I must make a new 'Glam D-d' icon - she's changed a good bit in the past couple of years, almost, since this was taken!)
no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:48 pm (UTC)All the best to you and yours too - have an excellent year.
no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:51 pm (UTC)Yes, I have to say the same about my son and daughter. I started the decade with two young children, but am ending it as the proud mother of two very fine young adults. :)
no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31/12/2009 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:06 am (UTC)Cheers!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:11 am (UTC)Rather a grim start to the new century on the whole alright. May it get better!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:31 am (UTC)Go me - shows what good taste I have!!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:36 am (UTC)Yes, we are perhaps lucky that so many of the would-be bombers are so inept. Even the guy on Christmas Day appears to have tries to set fire to his knickers and given himself second-degree burns in a sensitive place. Long may they continue so incompetent.
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:41 am (UTC)Ten years... the Millenium and the the 'will it won't it?' rumours of computers the world over crashing... seems so near and yet so far in memory. As Daughter remarked earlier 'I was 13 then' - it's almost unbelievable, so much has happened for them, and for me.
Well, here's to another ten years - may it be better for all of us or at the least.. no worse!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:46 am (UTC)A very Happy New Year to you and the family :)
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:53 am (UTC)We really should take these things more seriously. No - wait a minute - I think we have it about right...
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:55 am (UTC)We went to watch the fireworks down on Douglas prom with our daughter, who had just finished her first term at secondary school...
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 12:56 am (UTC)Happy New Year!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 01:00 am (UTC)It has been lovely to get to know you, too. You must need to go and lie down now after all the mad activity over on the MEFAs in the last 24hours!
no subject
Date: 01/01/2010 01:05 am (UTC)