What is the first big news story you remember?

The Profumo affair - I didn’t understand (probably just as well!) the tv news coverage so I asked my dad who Christine Keeler was. I remember he got very flustered and said “a tennis player or a model or something...” and changed the subject ?

Assassination of John F Kennedy 22nd November 1963. It came over the wireless and I remember my mum crying.

The end of WW2. I was 7. I think that the street party made more impact on me than the actual event though. My mum let the photographer go into her bedroom to take wider pictures of it through the open window, which amazed me. I wasn’t even allowed in there!

Kennedys assassination. I was 10.

Aberfan, it was the first time I realised children could die.

Vietnam war was reported every night, on the news

Like you, it's the Great Train Robbery.

I remember being very excited about the first satellite being launched into earth orbit.
My Dad and I listened to the beeps from it on the wireless.
I thought Sputnik was wonderful, although I really didn't understand anything about it, I was 5.

There were probably quite a lot of reports that were of more interest to British people but I remember as a child feeling very shocked by the news footage on the Mau Mau uprising. (the rebellion against British rule lasted from 1952 to 1960 and I guess I was around 7 or 8 years old when I started to be partially aware of these news reports).

From those reports I gathered that the Mau Mau were some sort of evil devils.

As in all incidents of rebellion or war, there are vicious and ruthless acts acts committed by all parties, and no doubt the Mau Mau were responsible for some of those. But only recently a completely different story was revealed and compensation was awarded to some of the Kenyans who had been tortured by our forces.

Blinko I remember that headline about Fuchs - I've only just 'got' it thanks to your post!
I was only about 12 but how many of today's 12 year olds would be oblivious to the double entendre?

I vividly remember Marilyn Munroe's suicide in 1962 - why this sticks on my memory I do not know.

Aberfan; but also a horrible picture in a newspaper where they'd put another head on a monkey. Found that so distressing...

Churchill dying or 'You've never had it so good', not sure which was first.

Grace Kelly's marriage to Prince Rainier 1956 TheSuez crisis 1956. I was 7.

Elvis's death 1977

Many of these events took place before I was born. I remember the excitement when the Apollo mission went to the moon.

The invasion of Hungary, and the refugees arriving at our primary school when I was 6.

Good heavens some of you are a good bit younger than me.
"Queen Mary the Queen mother" as she was designated who died in 1952 not long before the coronation.

The riderless horse in JFK's funeral procession- I was frightened by the boots that were backwards in the stirrups- He died on my 3rd birthday-

Like others, the death of George 6th in 1952. It was a big deal as he was relatively young. The behaviour of his brother, Edward 8th, was blamed by some - including the Queen Mother I believe - because he abdicated, leaving his younger brother to take on the role of king which he did not want and had not been brought up to do. The stress (and the smoking) affected his health.

I remember Prince Andrew being born, when I was five or six but the big one was JFK. He was assassinated in the same week my mother was rushed to hospital for an emergency appendectomy.

In those days, children under 11 weren't allowed into hospital wards so I didn't see my mother for some days and the two events got conflated in my mind.

The assassination of Kennedy really distressed me.

I do remember the head teacher came into our classroom and told us the king was dead , it didn’t mean anything to me, can’t recall I had any knowledge of him.

Moonlanding

Kennedy for me too. I was 11 and my 19 year old sister was working in America at the time.

Kennedy being shot .....think I was about 13, he was so famous that it made an impact on most people, even me ( who was wrapped up in The Beatles at the time and rarely thought of anything serious.)
The next big news story that made an impact on me was the awful tragedy of Aberfan, followed by the moors murders and then the wonderful moon landing.