'Feed the world'

Live Aid

Suddenly I feel old!

Mostly my age doesn’t overly concern me despite remembering Vietnam (just) Watergate and John Noakes presenting Blue Peter. This mornings discovery that ‘Live Aid’ hit the worlds airwaves and broadcasting satellites 19 years ago today has for some inexplicable reason changed that at least for a few minutes! It just can’t be 19 years since Sir Bob did his thing….it just can’t be! I remember it as if it were yesterday!

I along with millions of others was riveted to my TV. I lived in Manchester at the time but coincidentally was at my parents quite close to Wembley for a few days. Out on the street there was a palpable feeling of excitement and of ‘something happening’. The shops where unusually quiet and it seemed that on this hot summer’s day it was the only topic of conversation.

Today such an event would perhaps not seem so significant, current teenagers I doubt even know who Bob Geldof is but in 1985 this was the first gig of that magnitude and the technicalities and logistics involved where unprecedented.

The politics and arguments surrounding it at the time did nothing to dampen its popularity or the fact that it raised a figure in excess of 30million for its cause, the victims of famine in Ethiopia. Yes, I have no doubt that those involved could have quietly put their hand into their collective pocket and donated the same sum without generating the publicity but whatever the rights of wrongs the world doesn’t work like that.

For me at least, Live Aid will remain a high spot in my memories and Sir Bob a modern day hero….. but it still makes me feel old!