Memories Of 9/11

Afternoon,

Today marks the seventh anniversary since the appallng events of 11th September 2001. Four passenger aircraft were hijacked by Islamist Terrorists. Two slammed into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Washington, and the final plane ditched into a field in Pennyslvania aided by the brave passengers of United 93, who stopped the plane going into it's intended target, possibly Capitol Hill or the White House.

As for where I was that fateful day, I remember being at Crabble Corn Mill, near Dover, working as a volunteer as part of the Government's New Deal Scheme - the first I heard of it was a couple of hours after the actual event about 4pm. Back then I was still using an analogue tuner to listen to the radio - DAB was still a pipedream back then, so it was a case of hoping to have a decent reception, for the trip, to and from the mill. You just knew when the reception was going to snuff out!

Anyway, I stuck the radio on, and heard the reports coming in that two towers had collapsed. That could be anywhere. They then said that the Pentagon had been hit. By what?
Then they mentioned of more planes being in the air. As the reports became clearer and clearer, and the signal got better and better, so we could understand what on earth was going on.

We got to the train station at Kernesey. Now Kernesey is a very quaint station. A complete throwback to stations of old, even then. A world away from the anarchy of New York. The radio had said that the mobile networks were getting jammed, by the amount of people trying to get hold of colleagues and friends the other side of the Atlantic.

I called Mum up, to see if she had any news on the situation. She said that the TV pictures showed a panoramic view of Manhatten. It sounded very dramatic and I couldn't help but be blasé, thinking, 'nag, it can't be that bad.'

How wrong was I.

I got home, with my sister. It seemed that the journey home was one of the slowest and surreal journeys that I had ever undertaken. The weather back then, was no different to how it is today.

Dull, Grey, Misreable.

I remember as we got into the train station in Folkestone, that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw was on Radio 5 and it seemed he was as dumbfounded and knocked back for six as the rest of us.

Who couldn't fail to be.

America had been attacked in a way, not since Pearl Harbor and Midway.

We got home, and then bang. Right across the screen. A stunning, visual image that has remained etched on the conscious of the world ever since that day.

A day of infamy, indeed.

RIP


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