What were you doing 17 years ago today?

[PepperSteaks]

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.

I was at work. The boss had a phone call, so we went online to try and find out what happened.
I was six months pregnant and I remember being scared about the world is was bringing my baby into.

I met then DH in a bar after work and I was angry the screens were showing sports. I remember complaining to the barman and he changed over to the news.

Just finished watching neighbours and there was a news flash. Sat watching the news for hours in disbelief, it really was like a horror film.

I had been into work for a half day as returning after maternity leave (youngest was only 3.5 months, eldest was at nursery). I distinctly remember watching it all unfold on the news. Definitely my 'I know where I was' moment.

I was working in a call centre and was on a call as one of the supervisors walked around with a sign that said 'Do you have any family members in America?'. I shook my head and finished my call. Then my brain clicked in and I called over 'My Dad is in New York at the moment if that helps?'. I was told to go home and switch on the news.
He was fine - happened to be in New Jersey at the time. It took us hours to get hold of him though because all the phone lines were so busy.

Painting my mother's kitchen. We sat down for a cuppa, switched TV on and couldn't believe our eyes as the horror unfolded.

After returning to work from lunch at The Cock Tavern, I watched it all unfold, awful as I worked with a few Americans with family in NY, the phones were out. Another colleague's boyfriend worked in the city and was chatting to someone in one of the towers when it happened. Horrible day.

I was just about to leave to go to the bank to sort out my bank account because I was joining the RAF in October. Saw it happen and stayed to watch it. It had a huge impact on my RAF career

I was at work - I had left my desk to go and do a handover to someone as I was finishing up at 4pm for 3 and a half weeks holiday as I was getting married on the Saturday. When I got back to my desk I was told that I was to stay off the internet. It wasn’t until I got in the car at 4pm that I heard he full extent of what happened on the radio.

I was heavily pregnant with my eldest ds, was ordering a sandwich when the new came on in the sandwich shop. Everyone looked at each other, nothing like this had really happened before. I'll never forget that moment.

I was watching on the old telly screens in the multimedia dept when I worked in toys r us... convinced it was a hoax the team were playing on me and a film... watched the second plane crash and then when the store went deathly silent with no shoppers and a relative called to see if I was okay... I finally clicked that I had actually really just watched death in real time

The thing I remember most is everyone was silent that day - shops went quiet, nobody was talking on the bus, it was just quiet....

I was at camp with my class - we heard snippets of the news as it broke but without smart phones in those days I didn’t get the full picture until I got home. I remember all the staff being terrified when a plane flew low over the campsite. It didn’t seem as though it could possibly be real.

I remember all news websites were practically possible to get in, obviously due to the massively increased traffic. Bizarrely the only place I could find out what was going on was Popbitch. There were rumours that there was a plane missing over the Atlantic en route to the UK and another had gone missing after taking off from Schiphol airport - terrifying at the time as I was working in the city. I left work as soon as I could and remember waiting fir the bus and it being so silent, as all the planes had been grounded. Those few days after, when there were no planes overhead, were so strangely still. We'd just moved and the cable hadn't been connected so we couldn't watch the television news, I was quite glad about that when I heard about all the footage of people jumping from the towers.

Helping my dad paint our house.

I was at a funeral. As I parked the car ready before it started there was the first announcement on the radio that a plane had crashed. The person on the radio had no real details to give but you could tell in was serious.
By the time we came out of the church the world had changed.

I was at home with my children. I could not believe what i was seeing.

I was 12 and had got out of school that day for rehearsals for Annie at the theatre. I was one of the orphans. We were doing a rehearsal of the full show on stage. I remember being told what had happened by our chaperone. I didn't really understand the gravity of it at that age. Some of the adult actors were very upset. The show had a song in called NYC. We missed that song out of the rehearsal.

I was at work. Then I went home and started stripping wallpaper off my bathroom. I had the radio on and it was playing a New York radio station all evening so I listened to that. It was very surreal.

Working behind a bar in a Brewers Fayre. It was a quiet afternoon and an old polish lady told us what had happened. We were watching the news on the tv in the bar and saw the second plane hit live. Still can't believe it happened.

I was in primary 6 and our topic that term was America but I'd never heard of the WTC. I remember coming home from school and being annoyed that Zzap wasn't on and not understanding what the big deal about a plane crashing was as that's all my mum would tell me.

Because I was so young I didn't get the enormity of it at the time, sometimes I wish I had been an adult to see how I would have reacted and felt, my mum always tells me she was terrified. Most of the time I'm grateful I was so young and oblivious. Now that I have two children of my own I can imagine how frightened I would have been.

That sounded a bit strange, what I mean is I often feel guilty about how I reacted even though I was a child at the time. It wasn't until I got older and researched 9/11 that I began to understand how tragic it was.

At work. It was terrible as our firm's NY office was in one of the towers.

It was my second day in a new job. The training manager had a teeny TV and was updating us about what was going on. It was so surreal.

I then went to a football match that evening where we had a minute's silence for the victims.

I came home from uni to see the horror unfold on TV. It was my birthday, too.

I was still at primary school. None of the teachers said anything to us, the first I heard was when my friend and I got back to hers to play and have dinner, and found her mum sat on the sofa watching the news. She told us that the twin towers had been hit by planes and collapsed. I can remember so clearly me and my friend looking at each other for a moment, simply saying 'oh dear' and then wandering off to go and play. We were only 8, so too young to really appreciate what was happening at the time, but the details of that day have always stayed with me.

Happy birthday to us, Stillmuddling!

It's been easy for everyone to remember ever since. 2001 was "big birthday" for me, but went uncelebrated. I don't think anyone could have been in the mood, tbh. DP has now bought me a vintage NY snow globe featuring the twin towers. It's tragi comic, but I suppose babies are born every day, and it will be someone's actual birthday, too.