WAKING up to heavy snow yesterday, while the weekend’s bonfires were practically still smouldering, it felt strangely eerie.

Then I turned the TV on, and Donald Trump was giving a speech. Stirring my coffee cup, with half an eye on the falling snow, I assumed he was conceding defeat. My thoughts turned to the miserable prospect of driving to work on slippery roads.

Then I noticed the word ‘Victory’ emblazoned across the TV screen. In what seemed like slow motion, it started to sink in - taking me a good 30 seconds to process the fact that Trump was giving a live victory speech. “He’s won? Really?” I spluttered, and my phone pinged as texts from bewildered friends filtered through. “The Simpsons has come true,” said one.

As Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, which depicted Trump at the White House in an episode 16 years ago, said: the results of the US presidential elections are “beyond satire”.

And if you thought the fall-out from Brexit went on a bit, brace yourself for the long haul (which is probably a line Trump used at some point during his bells and whistles campaign). Once the initial shock has simmered, there will be endless debate and dissection of what this result means, not just for America but for the rest of the world.

I won’t add to the Trump column inches - as I write this, barely two hours after his victory speech, I haven’t digested the news enough to offer analysis anyway - but it has left me with that sense of other-worldiness you get coming face-to-face with moments of history.

It’s the “Where were you when..?” that crops up in random pub conversations. Where was I when I heard Donald Trump was President of America? Gazing out of my living-room window at an unwelcome autumn snowfall.

I thought of other momentous times I’ve lived through. I heard about Princess Diana’s death when my news editor rang me early on a Sunday morning, calling me into work to “get some reaction” on a car crash in Paris. Unprepared for the unprecedented public reaction that ensued, I came home later that day mildly annoyed that it was still all over the news. Even Coronation Street was on late that night.

Working on a newspaper that week was a memorable experience. As details of the fatal crash unfolded, public anger rose and the Press became a knee-jerk target. Even the local press, which is a world away from princess-chasing paparazzi. One of our photographers, a lovely, mild-mannered chap, was chased to his car while covering a county fair by a pair of hysterical middle-aged women yelling: “Paparazzi scum”.

Then there was September 11. When I heard that news I was having a cup of tea with Enid Blyton’s daughter. Yes, really. I was interviewing her for a magazine feature, and we were sitting in her garden when the photographer arrived, saying he’d just heard on the car radio that a ‘plane had hit a New York skyscraper. By the time I returned to the newsroom, my colleagues were gathered around a TV screen watching the Twin Towers about to collapse.

We never forget our first glimpse of earth-shattering news. Then there are those moments not so global, but still memorable. "Victoria Wood can't be dead," I spluttered in April, when a 'breaking news' strapline appeared on my computer screen. An hour later came the news that Prince was dead too.

It's been quite a year, with Bowie, Brexit, Brangelina and the rest. Living through pivotal moments in history gives us a sense of place in the world, however dangerous that world may be.

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