Where were you on 11th September 2001?

[FrenchieBoy]

On the 11th September 2001 America saw it's worst ever terrorist attack when two planes were frown directly and intentionally into the Two Towers building in New York City.
Can you remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard about it?
We (My wife and I) were working on a Hop farm down near Hereford, something that we did every year for the same farmer. We were living in Leominster and had two young American missionary friends invited over for an evening meal together. The first I knew about the "attack" was when one of them phoned me up to say that they would not be able to make it as one of their family worked close to The Two Towers and they had to stay by their phones to wait to hear if there was any news. (As it turned out thankfully their family member was were perfectly safe and well)

This song was written by Alan Jackson as a tribute to all of those who lost their lives - The passengers and crew members on the aircrafts and of course all of the Emergency Workers who never walked away from the rubble.

Have a think while you sit and listen to listen to this song titled "Where were you when the world stopped turning" - A very moving song which I always make a point of playing and singing when I am out busking on the 11th of September each year and tell us if you can remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about the terrible terrorist attack.

(I performed it yesterday just after a couple of police had stopped for a chat while I was busking locally and they both stood silently to attention throughout the entire song so I say Total Respect to the both of them)

 

[Swedish]

I was in my home office sorting out some invoices I remember watching as the horror unfolded. My pal and business partner was in a Saudi Prince's office, he remembers the prince asking him "What do you think about that?", He responded with "I think we all have a lot to learn..."

 

[VSS]

It was the last time I saw my father other than when he was on his death bed. We were celebrating his birthday.

I have to admit we weren't particularly interested in what was happening in America. We have no TV and our Internet connection was rudimentary at the time.
We only knew about it because someone mentioned it in a phone call.

 

[GlennUK]

I was working in the office on that day, my former boss and I turned on little Black and white TV he had sitting, dustily in the corner of his office.

We fiddled with the aerial until we had a black and white image which was watchable.

We sat watching until after the towers had collapsed IIRC.

Whilst we were not surprised that the towers collapsed, our thoughts immediately went to our former 'colleagues' as we knew what we would have done had we been on call in NY on that day. I dont think we said much after that.

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Just as a follow up to my original post here is an acoustic copy of my cover of "Where were you when the world stopped turning" which I videoed in my bedroom about a year and a half ago just using a basic video camera with the camera's mic.
Now a patch on Alan Jackson I know but I still play it every year on the 11th of September!

 

[User00056]

I was working behind the bar of the long-gone Park Hotel in Dundee. We had no TV in the bar, and it was a quiet evening so I didn't find out about it until very late that evening. I still remember the horror I felt as I watched the footage

 

[lochty]

I was in the middle of trying to book a return holiday to New Zealand and saw the first crash on tv in the travel agents office. Needless to say that trip didn't happen.

 

[Buchan]

Still up to my ears in FMD

 

[Cottis]

It was early afternoon at work and I was in the office. I worked for an Intl Invoice Financier, so we had fairly decent systems back in the day but it was still all dial up and slow. The internet stalled and struggled with the global traffic but we all stood aghast as we watched/listened to it unfold in stuttering, freezing images. I mostly remember the detail from going home that evening and watching it on the news.

I think only the 2004 tsunami shocked me more in terms of hard hitting impact. It was around the time where more and more people had access to films, videos, camera phones etc. So while all sorts of bad things happened over the years, it was the era where suddenly these things were actually being captured in stills and videos rather than just being reported verbally after the event.

I will never ever forget watching the power of that water hit those coastal areas and seeing cars, buildings and bodies being tossed around like match sticks.

 

[mudman]

One of the places I shot was a 40 acre wood owned by an ex WWII bomber pilot called Victor, it was effectively his garden as he lived in a cottage within that wood. I was helping him split logs when his wife came to tell us a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. He could be a little (!) abrupt and told her she must be watching a movie. Anyway she persuaded us to see for ourselves, I started watching it unfold a few minutes after the second plane struck.

I was supposed to fly to Houston for a three month training course for a new job a couple of days later, it was delayed a week due to these events. My first trip to the states and to do so just after 9/11, it was a strange time to fly and as strange time to be there, a bit of an eye opener. I had never seen Patriotism before, not on anything like the level I saw around Houston anyway.

 

[Nickb]

Can't remember.

 

[enfieldspares]

In Birmingham. In the the West Point flats. At a former girlfriend's house. Just walked into the sitting room from the kitchen after something to drink. Same Birmingham that I was in...just going into Powell's on Carrs Lane just before going to meet the same former girlfriend for a drink...when Thatcher resigned.

 

[terrier1]

At work on day shift work mates coming on to afternoon shift said that there had been incidents in America.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

I was in south Slovakia on a Porsche Cayenne interior cockpit launch were we were doing prototype builds when it came onto the radio, it stopped the work for the rest of the day.
I drove back to Germany the following day then a week later a person shall I say that I know very well asked me if I would be up for sky marshal duties for the next two years. Thankfully as a then 51 year old that plan did not go much further.

 

[DVS1]

In Aldershot watching it on the TV in the window of Radio Rentals...amazing how one such event can trigger a retention of memory

 

[wytonpjs]

I was only discussing this yesterday with the wife. I was stood in uniform, in the Air Launched Munitions IPT main briefing room watch this unfurl on what was one of the biggest TV screen's available at that time, next to the Group Captain Team Leader and the UK Munitions stockpile manager, an acquaintance of many years and the same rank as me. I was the ASRAAM manager.

We watched incredulous; I remember saying, that's changed the face of asymmetric warfare at a stroke forever.

My wife was at Marshall's of Cambridge at that moment, the HIOS lead for the UK C130 Fleet. Her Lockheed Martin colleagues present were dumbstruck.

It was a sobering day that changed the world - period!

 

[bogtrotter]

I was at a partridge shoot when word was passed down the line, one of the guns partners had called him and word spread round
the shoot in minutes, the shoot did carry on that day , but it all came to standstill when word went round , don't know how long
we stopped for half an hour maybe more that part is pretty much a blank.

 

[Wapinschaw]

I was working at home in my office on a document for work when my wife shouted to put the TV on. I watched with horror the second aircraft hit the tower then the collapse. I was working in the Aberdeen based oil and gas industry, we worked closely with a lot of Americans and Canadians, and as we personally knew a lot from previous aviation work we were anxious for some time. It was clear at the time that there would be repercussions on a global scale. We had a couple of, shall I say Asians working with us who were very unsympathetic, with a "serves them right" attitude that did not go down well with the rest of the team. They both left not long afterwards.

 

[Zio65]

Fishing in the river

 

[VSS]

It was a sobering day that changed the world - period!

I don’t think it changed the world.
People were being nasty to each other before, and they've carried on being nasty to each other since.
As a supposedly intelligent species we're remarkably slow at learning.