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Obviously, the main thing you remember from that day is the attacks on the world trade centre. But what else do you remember from the day?
I was servicing boilers in Sunderland that day, and watching bits of it live in customers houses. I was excited that morning to be picking up a brand new car. A moonstone peugeot 206 1.1 litres of gutless petrol engine and dubious build quality. It was the worst day ever for showing your mates your new car. My most prominent memory of that days tv and the next days papers was the 'jumpers' although the tv coverage could not avoid showing people jumping from the buildings, I'm pretty sure the papers used the images for affect.
What else do you remember?
I was sitting in an office of the Spanish college of elite pilots (RAF equivalent) when some guy came in the office with the news, I then went home and watched it unfold. It all felt a bit distant. The Madrid bombs on the other hand. 🙁
Got very frustrated at the reporters constantly talking about a return to 'normalcy', the word is normality you imbeciles!
I'd skived off College early, other half was in bed on nights. Popped to the supermarket after watching some of the earlier footage and not really taking a lot of notice. Came home and started watching it I think just as the second tower went down. I have to be honest, I really didn't know what the 2 towers were back then but every channel (all 4/5 of them!) seemed to be covering it so I went and woke the other half up and he was mortified. Parents were in france in the middle of nowhere so didn't know anything about it until 3 days after.
I was half-way through coding the tele-commanding functions for the Rosetta and Mars Express mission, and having my first mid-life crisis.
We all stopped work to watch the news unfold. Shocking day.
I was on the edge of the quantocks(3 yrs before starting mountain biking) doing some building work. The client came down and announced the news and I had to ask wtf is the twin towers, I then retreated back into my bumpkin life of misery and strife.
I was at the office. My wife was at home on maternity leave, our first child having been born in June. I remember thinking what the world my daughter would grow up in would be like after that attack and inevitable reprisals.
I was just getting off a flight from Barcelona.
I'd woken early with not much to do that day at all other than wait in for someone who was visiting to arrive..
Strangely for me I had spent much of that time sat in front of the BBC news channel drinking tea and watching 'normal' news.. my guest arrived just as the first reports started coming in so we watched transfixed as it all panned out..
A few hours later after it had started to sink in a bit we walked through town to visit the local pub.. I distinctly remember walking past one bar where there was a great deal of cheering and celebrating going on.. even with the anti-capitalist sentiment taken into account it still seemed a little brutal..
we speculated Jihad and the beginning of the end..
I had my best day's fishing ever and then got home to what I thought at first was a movie on the telly...
I was just getting on a flight from Lyon.
I was working on the Skycoaster in Ayia Napa, just collecting some food from the bar next door and saw in the 2nd plane hit. Bit crazy knowing what was happening and dealing with drunk happy tourists. Wednesday was change over day, all the tourists left an no one arrived. We had 3 very quiet weeks before people started coming back.
Wife and I were working in the same company next to Heathrow airport and the main rest room for the crews had a TV and we watched the day unfold on that. It was strange how the information trickled through at first around the office through word-of-mouth...first the news was talk of Cessnas hitting the towers and we all got back on with our work then the news came in that it wasn't small aircraft at all and that's when we sought out a TV
Was living in Ibiza, people had called me to get down to my mates bar which was packed out with people watching the tv in stunned silence.
I'd been in a meeting on the 25th floor of 1CS for 3 hours. Came out to see everyone watching a bad film on their laptops. Only it wasn't. At that point they thought there was a plane on it's way to London - and what was the tallest building? Then it was suggested that all non critical staff would like to make their way home. Halfway their the closed down the network so I walked home to Twickenham from South Kensington.
7/7 I was on my way into Canary Wharf for a meeting. That was rather more worrying.
I was in the Namib desert. And therefore oblivious to what was happening.
I was working on a building site and when the first plane hit there was the usual builders humor about how could the pilot not see the twin towers. When the second one hit there was silence.
I was half-way through coding the tele-commanding functions for the Rosetta and Mars Express mission
Now that's spooky. Was my 1st week in Turin working on Rosetta.
We flew back to Netherlands just for the weekend, which was a bit creepy... specially the planes flying over the apartment... I'm sure they seemed lower then normal.
I was sat by a pool in Spain watching pretty ladies in bikinis and drinking sangria. Someone came out from the bar and i thought i overheard them say a plane had hit the Whitehouse. Assuming they were talking pish or it was part of a bad joke I went to get a pint & saw the towers collapse on TV.
Was due to fly home that night which proved to be a struggle.
Was sat at work trying hard to contact staff members in NYC. All accounted for eventually. Not fun though.
I was watching live on the TV on the gatwick express while trying to convince the future Mrs Stoner that having been evacuated from the 35th floor of 1 Canada Sq, mustering at the foot of the building wasnt the smartest of ideas, and she'd be better off heading for the nearest pub....
i was driving all day so did not see any of it.
i do remember thinking that we (britain) will be next.
Thought 'we'll be busy now', went home, packed a bag and went back to work expecting the unexpected. A very strange day indeed. Never been the same since for many reasons.
I was in China, Tienanmen Square in fact looking at pictures of the burning towers in a Chinese paper. Not speaking Chinese at all i had no idea what was happening but it looked pretty serious!
The sale of our flat had just fallen through so feeling pretty down
headed out to a country park with my wife and oldest (2 at that time)
while getting something to eat in the Cafe around 2pm..ish heard a breaking news report of a light aircraft hitting 1 of the twin towers no reports of any casualties at that time, when we eventually got home just sat stunned at the images on TV think i sat up till the early hours as more and more footage appeared
Was surfing in France. We heard about it that evening, lying on the forest floor in the campsite at camping le foret in seignosse, my mate had a wind up radio and was translating from french. Next day we struggled to find an english speaking newspaper but the photos blew my mind. I phone dhome and my Dad was convinced Bush was going to nuke, Iran/Iraq/Afhghanistan/****stan.
i was at school/sixthform, in a music class. the teacher came and told us he was late because he was watching the news: "a plane has hit a skyscraper in NYC"
to which i ASSUMED a hang glider or small one man plane had bumped into some random building and was lying in a heap on top of a taxi, in a comedy kind of way.
my response was "[chuckle], whoops" or similar
i got thrown out of the class :s
went home, and watched the events unfold on telly.
I was working in a book shop in Portsmouth. A guy came in asking if there was a bar with a TV nearby because a plane had hit a building. He bought a book and paid with a £50 note so we wondered if he was trying to distract us from a counterfeit. Then went back to student house and watched it unfold.
Does anyone else not really care anymore? It was a horrific attack and I feel very sorry for everyone who lost their lives and who were/are affected by it, but why oh why the constant documentaries and news coverage; many many worse things have happened since and are still happening.
Was the day after a big car crash... All I could do was sit and watch the telly, however I did wonder what drugs they had given me 😯
50/50 as to whether anything happens today imo.
they reckon Osama had plans for the anniversary, but most countries at risk, are on Godzilla degrees of alert because of this.
if it gets to midnight without anything kicking off, I will agree vanilla, but until then the jury is out.
I was on a beach in Roses, Catalunya. Went into a cafe to use los servicios & saw it all unfolding.
later we drove back to our base in Santa Pau & tried to listen to the BBC World Service to hear what was going on (no TV in the apartment) & it sounded like the end of the world was indeed nigh.
next day, back at Roses, the air raid sirens went off 😯
day after that, Barcelona airport was very very very busy with army blokes & armed police
i was walking back from uni when i saw the footage on some tvs in an electronics shop. i chuckled to myself thinking "another minor disaster at a power station, when will they learn!". then i got to my house and my american housemate told me the story
but why oh why the constant documentaries and news coverage
because it changed the entire world
I was manager of a record shop, a customer told us but he didn't mention the planes, then another customer proclaimed it was the Chineese government and told us planes were flown into the towers. Town went quiet so we closed early, I hadn't seen any images at that point, I put TV on as one of the towers collapsed.
I got in from working a 0600-1400hrs shift,wife was home at start of her maternity leave for our first child (born 2 weeks later) , i looked at the telly and said "whats this crap on?" thinking it was an afternoon film as what i was watching was a burning skyscraper.......how wrong was i 😕 . Watched the news the rest of that day utterly shocked. At the time i worked for an american firm, next day the flags outside work were removed (USA,British,Euro) so as not to attract attention and all domestic/foreign travel was halted in the company temporarily and gates locked at night with a security guard hired also.
Thinking about it i can't beleive my daughter soon to be 10 years old is as old as the war in Afghanistan , has it really been that long.
Sat at work pishing about in IRC with some mates, was the 1st to hear about it on our floor and they all thought I was taking the piss.
Very worrying as the last email we had from my brother in law was telling us how awesome NYC was and he was going check out the view from the WTC the next morning, turned out he was sat in a dinner having breakfast right next to the towers when the it all kicked off....another 60 mins and he'd have been at the top of the towers. Was a very long 24 hrs waiting to hear from him.
Posted in wrong thread...somehow!
I was at Maastricht airport flying home. It was playing on all the monitors and it was the quietest airport I've ever been in. We got as far as Amsterdam and had to wait a few hours there as UK airspace was closed.
And today I'll be flying to Lisbon.
I was working my summer job as a data input monkey. I overheard the managers discussing some sort of major disaster unfolding and deciding not to tell the staff about it...
So I wandered back into the office and stuck the radio onto Radio five and we all listened to it unfold. Managment weren't happy with me, but for some reason it didn't seem that important, cretins.
early shift that day. Got home and wife said plane had crashed into scyscraper.
Assumed it was an accident ... Went to pick my boy up from after school rugby.
Got called into the front room by a housemate in our houseshare in Camden, wibbling on about some plane crash or something. All I remember really is being sat in front of the telly in utter disbelief as the second plane hit and just sat there staring at the TV for the following hours with my chin on the floor, as my housemates seemed to carry on nonplussed with their usual day, and me trying to explain to them the signifigance of what was proceeding.
About to deploy on my first exercise with my regiment after pass-out. The Boss came round & gave us the news, suddenly everything became very ****in real..
Working in a small Engineering firm, always had national radio on in office & first heard it when the did Breaking news bulletin.
Initial shock was quickly replaced with concern for one of the older Engineers who had only a couple of days earlier gone on holiday to New York & he had highlighted the world trade centre as one of his first planned trip< he was a great guy & there was real genuine concern for him through the company, luckily we later got word he had been up to the observation deck the day before, a day early! unbelievable luck!
I went home after work & it was a surreal feeling watching the TV footage for 3 hours as no family had come home & usually they were all in before me! Probably the most memorable day in my 29 years, at the time, it was truly unbelievable!
I was in the office, people were talking about it and seemingly in shock, I couldn't understand why everyone was reacting to it that way when The Rwandan genocide and the Bhopal disaster barely raised a flicker of emotion, and I still don't get the over reaction.
Watching the footage of the second plane going into the tower was almost film like, it was hard to connect it with reality. Watching the guy leap to escape the flames, the way he tumbled as he fell, that was very very real and shocking.
just finished the school sponsored walk.
ran home - had a phone call almost instantly the second i got in the door , my mate just said "turn the tv on terry" i asked why and was told "just do it" . turned it on and i dont think either of us said a word for 10 minutes
definantly one of those moments you instantly remember as soon as anyone talks about it