9/11

It’s like the death of JFK, you just remember what you were doing at the time. In that event, I was a student on a Liverpool bus going into town when a man slumped into the seat next to me and muttered some thing like that I would be called up(for the army). I think that he was drunk even though it was only 7.30 pm. I was going into town to watch a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s ‘The Master Builders.’ Boring bloody play which put me off Ibsen for life.

On 9/11, I was quietly sitting in my office working when my secretary came in and said that Pete Simmons (Facilities Manager) has just said that a plane has crashed into the Word Trade Centre. ‘Not surprised,’ I said, ‘planes fly round there like bees around a honey pot. Had to happen some day.’ Carried on working. Then she comes back and tells me that another plane has hit the Twin Towers. Now I am interested.

We all dashed home at the end of the day to see what was happening and then, of course, we saw the towers collapse. I said to my partner something like, ‘Now they have a taste of terrorism, maybe they will stop supporting the IRA.’ I was told that I was callous but it came to pass.

Went back to New York in March 2003 and put flowers on the fencing for the firewoman. It was cold and the wind moaned over the site.

We had lunch at the top of one tower once. Let’s face it: it could have been you and it could have been me.