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Original poster

What were you doing 17 years ago today?

662 replies

PepperSteaks · 11/09/2018 09:03

I think September 11th is definitely one of those moments when you remember exactly where you were. As MN is such a cross section of society I thought it would be interesting to know where people were when it happened.

OP posts:
NewtScamandersNaughtyNiffler · 11/09/2018 13:29

I have no idea. I think I'm the only person one the planet who can't remember.

I remember my friend telling me and my response was "what are the twin towers?"

I was 17 as well so can't even blame my age for the ignorance Blush

purplelass · 11/09/2018 13:31

At work. No TV or internet in the office and one of the guys had gone to his mum's for lunch and came in telling us a plane had flown into the WTC. We all assumed it was a small plane, maybe a couple of casualties.
It was only when I got to the gym after work that I saw what was happening and sat on the exercise bike for over an hour watching the news on the big screen TV, literally couldn't believe what I was seeing.

BifsWif · 11/09/2018 13:31

I was at college.

I had an interview that evening for a babysitting job and we just sat together and watched the news. My mum was watching on sky news and saw the second plane hit as it happened, there are no words for what happened that day.

Maverick66 · 11/09/2018 13:32

On the motorway on my way home from shopping trip.

gingercat02 · 11/09/2018 13:33

Working in antenatal clinic and went to call a patient. Couldn't figure out what was sooo interesting on the waiting room telly that no one paid any attention to me

KnitFastDieWarm · 11/09/2018 13:34

I was having this exact conversation with dh yesterday and we both remember to the second what we were doing when we heard. I was in the loft at my Mum and dad’s house doing my gcse art homework and my brother came running in after the first plane hit saying there’d been an accident. We sat and watched in horror as the second plane hit. It was surreal and awful.
I highly recommend the memorial museum if you’re visiting New York, it’s incredibly moving.

Butternutsqoosh · 11/09/2018 13:34

I'm a flight attendant. I had landed Home that morning from Johannesburg and had a sleep at my mums house. Woke up to watch it all unfolding live on tv. Prayed that none of my immediate colleagues were involved and wondering what aviation was going to be like from now on. Felt like I was watching a disaster movie.

Thecomfortador · 11/09/2018 13:35

Last few days of my summer job in a school. Got home- seem to remember hearing the news in a car but I'm not sure who gave me a lift. Then sat watching it unfold on tv.

LapdanceShoeshine · 11/09/2018 13:37

I was at home, kids at school.

I can’t remember if it was a newsflash on R4 before 2pm, or in the scheduled news at 2pm, but I heard it then, turned the TV on & sat in utter shock watching everything thereafter.

(Actually looking at the timeline it must have been an earlier newsflash, as the second plane hit at 2.03pm our time and I saw that happen)

Almondio · 11/09/2018 13:37

At work in a newsroom, watching it unfold on numerous screens. Total, eerie silence...before full on news mode set in and didn't stop for some time.

JynxaSmoochum · 11/09/2018 13:38

The day before going back to university. I'd just got in from town from buying supplies for my new house, and DM had the TV on. It was around the time the second plane hit, and the newsreaders were getting new footage and were begining to querry if it was footage from another angle then realising that it was the second plane and that they couldn't have been accidents.

It was immediately clear that it was a generation changing moment after the optomism of the Millenium, Good Friday Agreement and the economy booming under New Labour (although that bubble burst a bit later Wink)

When I began teaching a couple of years later, some of the sillier y7s were obsessed with Osama Bin Laden. It boggles my mind now that there are now adults who were babies/ toddlers when it happened.

WendyCope · 11/09/2018 13:39

On a plane, on my way to Rome.

INeedNewShoes · 11/09/2018 13:42

It was a couple of weeks before I was going to uni and I was working in a telesales job between A levels and starting uni (not something I'm proud of!). One of my colleagues told me and I laughed because I didn't believe them and thought it was a twisted joke.

CMOTDibbler · 11/09/2018 13:44

Flying to Finland via Stockholm. Went to the lounge in Stockholm and was on autopilot before I sat down and noticed everyone staring horrified at the TVs

Optimisticbanana · 11/09/2018 13:50

I was picking up my daughter from nursery and some of the Mums were starting to talk about it. I think by the time we'd driven home the second tower had been hit. I was trying to explain to a 3 year old why Mummy was crying, but I couldn't turn the TV off.

ToriaPumpkin · 11/09/2018 13:50

I was in high school. We boarded weekly and had just come back to halls after school. Someone said a plane had hit the twin towers and I didn't really take in what they were saying. We went out to the local shops for an hour then came back up and joined lots of other students crowded round the TVs in the lounges and fully took in what had happened. It was the quietest I ever heard that place.

Mum2OneTeen · 11/09/2018 13:51

I was at a mother/baby activity thing in town with my 10 month DD. People were talking about the planes crashing into the twin towers, in my sleep deprived state I didn't know what they were talking about until I got home and saw the images on telly.

Everyone was terribly shocked and everyone seemed to know that the western world as we knew it was irrevocably changed. And those terrible images will be forever inside my head.

GrumpySausage · 11/09/2018 13:53

I was 15 and for some reason I'd finished school early. (Free period maybe).

My parents were having the fascias painted on the house so the windows to the living room were covered up with newspaper and I remember watching the news in this eerie glow. When I look back now I always picture the day in this yellow muted light as that's how I saw it unfold on tv.

I remember my mum getting home and us just looking at each other in shocked silence.

sashh · 11/09/2018 13:59

It boggles my mind now that there are now adults who were babies/ toddlers when it happened.

Next year there will be adults who were not born when it happened.

MozzchopsThirty · 11/09/2018 14:10

I was at work, exh phoned me and said have you seen the news, and everyone else was getting phone calls. We all watched it unfold in horror

We had returned from a trip on United airlines the week before and poor dd who was only 5 said 'mummy is that our plane that crashed'

I remember there being nothing else on tv, no normal music or shows on the radio
It was a strange time. It felt like we watched it for weeks.

Last year I took dd to the 9/11 museum and she cried all the way round and just couldn't comprehend it

I still believe we don't know the truth about 9/11

MilkItTilITurnItIntoCheese · 11/09/2018 14:10

I was on holiday in morocco. We both had upset tums so we’re in our hotel room. Watched with disbelief and horror of course. Had to fly home the next day. No hand luggage at all was permitted. Just passports and medication. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people moaning about this! It was the quietest flight I’ve ever been on.

pallisers · 11/09/2018 14:12

I was in the US on maternity leave sitting on the sofa feeding my newborn. DH had dropped the older children to daycare and was in work. Usually wouldn't have the tv on but I did that day. Saw the second plane go in and called my BIL and said "turn on the tv". Then called a friend in NYC. It was surreal and stayed that way for days afterwards. Only comparable feeling was the lock down after the Boston Marathon bombing.

nornironrock · 11/09/2018 14:24

In a cafe in Scarborough, meeting a mate for my birthday (yes, really) and watched the whole thing live. I don't think the pictures will ever fade in my memory.

MaryPoppinsPenguins · 11/09/2018 14:28

Mozzchops - what truth do we not know?

It was my first day of university. I was in a drama class and our tutor cane running in after lunch saying we were all going to the lecture theatre to watch it. His wife was American and they lost family.

Stillmuddlingthrough · 11/09/2018 14:28

It was my birthday and I had just brought cakes into work. My mum rang me as word got round as we couldn't get any internet up - I vividly remember the shock in her voice telling me they had collapsed as she had the tv on. Someone at work was meant to be going there the next day. I remember not being able to tear myself away from the tv that night - I am sure one bit had those people who jumped set to music which felt horribly distasteful. Felt really shitty celebrating my birthday the next year - still conscious of that now really as it still feels a bit disrespectful.