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 picked up my kids from school and took them to the park around the corner where lots of parents went after school to carry on chatting. I stayed extra late, chatting to a young mum I used to see around. When we finally trailed home it was about 5 and my answer phone had loads of frantic messages from my dad. He was very cross I was not picking up the phone, I was pretty irate that he was being unreasonably cross with me. He told me to put the tv on. His anxiety came from the fact that my brother was in the States for work and he couldn't get hold of him (his work was air travel related). All was well in the end.

I was on the school bus and heard the report on the bus radio. We were ushered into the school hall to watch the news.

All was well for my brother, I meant. Not for everyone else caught up in it obviously.

In one of the lounges at my university, watching it on TV with about a dozen other people, listening to one of my classmates scream and cry in the room next room because her father worked in one of the Trade Towers. He died.

The week before, had been through the worst week of my life, my mind was a mess and I felt like a complete wreck. I worked in a shop in a city centre and our customers were mainly office workers. I remember listening to radio 1 and the news cutting in, I shouted to the boss at the back of the shop that something was happening in New York and she should come and listen. She just rolled her eyes and told me to get on with work and she wasn't interested. Then the second plane hit, by this point customers were gathered around the till to listen to the radio, I remember people were really upset and scared (lots of banks offices were nearby who had colleagues working in NY). The city was eerily quiet that afternoon and anyone who did come in the shop was wanting to know was happening and wanted to listen to the radio. I was quite young and frightened, not help by the amount of people that were saying it was "the start of WW3", "The end of the world", "London would be next..." etc etc. It was an awful day, I will never forget it.

It was DD1’s due date so was on maternity leave

I was dozing on the sofa and I remember waking up in a flat panic. Turned on the TV just as the second plane hit

I was at school and came home to my surprise that my cousin, who had been visiting from the US and was actually flying home that day, was sitting in the living room. She'd gotten as far as her stop in Amsterdam before having to come back.

Watching it on TV.

At secondary school. They decided not to tell us (would be impossible today with phones).
I got home and put the tv on, as usual, and really struggled to process it. I was home alone for a couple of hours before my mum came back from work.

I was at home with my son who was only a few months old, i was also suffering morning sickness. I rember.watching it numbstruck my nan rang me to see if i knew saying what atwrrible accident i had to say it was most likely a terrorist attack. A few hours later the b52's flew over my house in pairs. I wondered what kind ofworld were i bringing the kids into.

Walking to a chemistry lesson at Alevel. When it first happened there was speculation that it was a accident. I renewed mumbling it’s probably a terrorist attack. The class muppet heard me and mocked me for 10 mins along with the teacher until the second aircraft hit.

Was living and working in Cyprus. All (limited) English TV channels reverted back to Greek, rang home to check on everyone and spent the day in the bar I worked at watching it all unfold on Sky news.

There was a real sense of panic for tourists as Cyprus is one of the closest airbases to the Middle East. Both the RAF and American Air force had (still have?) a huge presence on the divided island. The US base is on the Turkish side and RAF base is on Greek side. We were advised by local police to keep our passports on us at all times. It was a very eerie and strange few days.. there was no music in any of the bars or restaurants, people due to fly out in the days following the attack were nervous wrecks, lots of people didn't actually make their flights in.

BIL and SIL were actually in NYC and due to a broken leg (BIL leg broken on 10th September) they had to forgo their tickets to WTC tour the next day

I was working as a waitress in London Bridge.
It was so shocking but what made it more poignant was how many customers came in saying they'd been on the phone to their New York offices when lines just went dead.

Just started college. Had sprained my ankle badly on the second day playing volleyball. So I was hobbling too and from there on the bus

I had just returned from the IVF clinic having had what would turn out to be a successful embryonic transfer.
My son is now 16 years old.

SecretWitch

That's one thing I remember about the day, there wasn't a cloud in the Sky, quite rare in the UK in September. But watching the TV and then looking out of the window the sky seemed to be the exact same shade.

Enrolling on my PGCE. I had a last minute place and started a day late.

Later that day I had to travel to the NE by train and everyone was sharing news on the way - it was a very strange atmosphere.

I was working in a pub. Heard it on the radio so we got the big screen (usually used for football) on just in time for the second plane to hit.

DH and I had agreed to go on holiday to New York and Boston that September but due to DHs dithering we never booked it. Normally his dithering re holidays drives me mad (and I normally book anyway) but I was very grateful this time. We've never been on that holiday, couldn't bring myself to book it after.

Buying my wedding shoes on Princes st in Edinburgh. Dh phoned me to tell me. I watched through the window of a tv shop in St James' centre and spoke to an American gentleman.

Later that day I drove across the country to my friend's wedding rehearsal, and sat waiting in the car park of a filling station for her brother. I listened to Chris Moyles on Radio 2, all he did was play very gentle songs and say a few words in between- he said how eerie it was on London as the airspace was clear and I remember trying to imagine that.
After the wedding rehearsal I was staying at my American friend's house and she spent the whole evening on the telephone.

At work near Liverpool Street station in London. I'd been in the twin towers on a work trip a month earlier, and people I'd met and spoke to regularly on the phone/ email, though didn't know we'll, were in there. Nobody I knew personally died but colleagues in my open plan office knew victims.

Our boss sent us home in case they hit the City of London next but most of us struggled to get home as a lot of trains and tubes and were over full or cancelled. I was lucky as my bus still ran and was oddly empty.

DH and I watched coverage in the evening and said we hoped it wouldn't be used as an excuse to start a war ...

DS was five weeks old and I was staying with my parents. DH was working overseas. A friend was coming to see me and new DS with her four children that day. I remember having the the radio on and hearing something about it so we switched the tv on and watched the second plane hit. We just sat and watched all day. Friend and her dcs came and we were all in shock. It is a feeling I don’t think any of us will ever forget.

DH had had a friend staying with him in Bulgaria and friend was flying home that day. He phoned DH from the airport to say to watch tv. His flight did leave.

I moved to Bulgaria with DS a few weeks later and it was still obviously huge everywhere. And then I remember watching the US air strikes on Afghanistan on CNN and wondering what the state world would end up in.

I opened an email from a friend holidaying in the US saying she was leaving NYC for San Francisco. Matched with the news it was horrifying. It was two days before we heard from her and she was deeply shocked as she'd been booked onto the doomed flight but had missed it because of the traafic chaos that morning.

My second day on my first professional job. I walked out of training into chaos. The Internet was completely down, people were frantically making phone calls (a related business was close to the pentagon), most just looked shocked, the person I later found out to lack every social grace known to man, came up to me and said "finally America gets to experience what everyone else has for years and everyone's being bloody dramatic and stupid about it, they'll milk this for decades" and then disappeared back into the cupboard (literally) he worked in.

Came home and saw it on tv. Spent days trying to contact a friend who worked in one of the towers, she had gone out and got very drunk the night before and not made it into work - she was meant to be in a meeting in the restaurant first thing. She woke up and looked out the window to find the towers gone, she totally changed as a person and never recovered from surviving, she'd gone through so much but in the end that's what broke her.

I was thinking this morning how much the world changed, how words like terrorist became more widely known - I'd been at uni with people who had no idea about it. The discussions that raged in Muslim community locally about if they should heed the call to fight, the big spread in our local paper about it. I remember one man, a consultant at the hospital, did heed the call. I've no idea what happened to him.

School, we had it on the TV when I came home