Apart from Ricky Marlowe's Hairpiece, today is a day when my thoughts turn to NSC's New York Geezer, who was in the building at the time of the attack and, over a couple of beers, once told Roz and me his tale of that day. The most astonishing bit of his story was how he found out about the attack ... despite being half way up the building, it took a phone call from a friend watching what was happening on TV to tell him that a plane had hit the building and he'd better get out.
However much we were affected by the events of September 11th, it is nothing to the experience of those who were there.
NYG hasn't posted on NSC for a couple of years now. How are you, Paul?
I had just got back from Cuba the day before and I was watching Neighbours whilst trying to get rid of some jet lag. I didn't sleep at all that afternoon or that night.
good, my memory has not gone then. because i remember the evening going so quick and it hittting my leaving(for football) time in an instant. i was sooo looking forward to the soton game but must say it was one of the weirdest atmospheres i have encountered. i dont think anyone cared in the context of things
I got an IM at work from a colleague in Edinburgh. It said "What's this I hear about a plane hitting the World Trade Centre?"
My immediate thought was a light aircraft had got into trouble and somehow struck one of the towers. I jumped onto the web and it soon became clear that it was not the case. I spent the rest of the day hopping from one website to another trying to keep track of what was going on. With millions of others doing likewise, the very core infrastructure of the internet struggled to cope that day.
I got picked up from work by my wife and we spoke about how the world had changed forever that day. We'd been married for less than a month, and it was not many months before 9/11 when I surprised Suzie with a trip to New York and, whilst there, proposed. Like many tourists to that great city, early one morning we took breakfast in a diner in the shadows of the WTC before going up to the viewing platforms to enjoy those glorious vistas. We could only begin to imagine the horrors experienced by those unfortunate enough to be in those buildings that day.
I "worked" for Penguin at that time. Floor 7 of 80 The Strand, or something like that. I'd been moved a 100 metres from Covent Garden to there a month or two earlier working on a project entirely alone, so i knew and spoke to none of the hundreds of editors, designers and tea-brewers on that upper ground. I had headphones on listening to whatever i'd downloaded. An email arrived from my friend to say that something had flown into a financial epicentre. I refused to believe, of course. I'm an atheist so cannot accept that things happen or people and things drop to pieces. The many of Penguin amassed in front of oversized televisions to get the fullest story then available. Rumours started coming through of planes without contact veering their way to London to burst around the Eye we could see from our window. Some started running. I just went for another lonely cigarette and thought of my cycle home without bombs being thrown at my head.
Was at work fixing machines when it started. A freind at work who was on a computer at the time told me of a plane that had hit the WTC. We both thought it had been hit by a light aircraft. Went back to work and was then told a little later about the other plane and then the Pentagon being hit. Then realised it was a terrrorist attack. Continued to work and then found out I was working alone as my colleagues were watching the events of the telly.
Just got into our rest area when the south tower had collapsed, didn't beleive it at first as only six months earlier I was at the top of it. Couldn't believe something that big could fall down. A terrible day, a day when Americans found out they weren't untouchable anymore.
I working as a football coach at a college in Seattle at the time. Was on my way to work for the day when i heard about it on the radio. I got into college and everyone was sent home for the day. I then spent the rest of the day watching it unfold while desperately trying to call home.
At work in London, watching events unfolding on telly - about 10 of us were staring at the screen when the second plane went in, women crying everywhere as the towers collapsed - and holding a plane ticket to go to New York on Sep 12.
That trip was, of course, delayed for about 3 weeks; when I did go, as well as having a really nice drink with fellow Albion fans top, top blokes New York Geezer and Zig in the lower East Side - exactly the sort of customarily-enjoyable if, given recent events, slightly sombre Albion and NSC meet-up that now, awfully, we'd never be able to have with our New York NSC mate, Robert Eaton.
The fire at the WTC was still burning in southern Manhattan then, you could smell it horribly clearly as the tube went by around City Hall, people holding hankies over their faces etc.
In Salou on holidays. Had just gone in for a drink in a german bar and it was showing the second plane hitting the building. The rest of the holiday was pertty much spent watching tv somewhere or other.