Do you remember where you were that day

[Lovingthesunshine88]

Do you remember where you were that day 18 years ago? 9/11

I was 13 and had just started high school i was doing swimming when PE teacher got called out, when she came back in she told us to get changed and make our way home if possible and said the world was under attack by terrorists.

Obviously this was scary to hear at 13 i hadn't heard of terrorism. I remember getting home and my mum watching it on TV in utter shock. I was such a sad day and still makes me feel sad 18 years on thinking of all those innocent people losing their lives

Working at Canary Wharf. Watched it unfold in open plan office. You could hear a pin drop. I remember just wanting to go home and hug my children. Next day I had to drive to Suffolk to see a supplier. The roads were eerily quiet apart from heightened security passing the American airbases.
My friend was due to be at a meeting at WTC but had missed her flight

I was in Lower Manhattan. It is damn awful to remember.

I was 14. In an IT lesson at school. My dad text me saying ‘plane crash in US. Lots dead. Look at the news’. I told my teacher and we all watched.

Dad then picked me up from school and I got in just in time to see the second tower collapse. I’ve never forgotten it.

We were on honeymoon in the Maldives. A world away. We'd got married four days earlier. The security flying back into London after the attacks was horrendous.

I was teaching that morning - of course in uk time it happened later in the day. I was teaching maths, referred to pentagons and the pupils couldn't remember how to know the difference between pentagons and hexagons. So I went off on a tangent - we looked at a photo of the Pentagon from above. The children drew it. This then led to talking about other famous buildings in the US, as we were looking at photos in a library book (no school internet access then or whiteboards). Nobody at work knew anything about it. After work I went to a union meeting where the organiser said we would all want to get back home and not knowing anything, I was confused. I went home and saw it all on TV. The next day my TA and I talked of how strange it was that we had talked about US buildings in such detail, literally an hour before such dreadful things had all happened to the places I had mentioned.

I was in a 4th period I.T lesson at secondary school, our teacher had the radio on whilst we worked on excel sheets. It was most bizarre.

We lived near several army barracks and MOD sites. I remember my parents being very worried and drumming security procedures into us.

At work in an accounts office and a colleague got a call from her daughter to say she was ok. She worked as a stewardess on American Airlines. I remember messaging DH who thought I was making it up.
Listening all the way home on the radio and sitting through big traffic delays as we live near a nuclear fuel site and there was a massive diversion and extra security around the area.

Working in a call centre. Dickhead manager wouldn't tell us what was happening and we had no Internet access, so didn't find out till I got home. DH (then boyfriend) had been watching footage of it, including people jumping, and was distraught.

i had woken up early as my mum was flying to Australia to live that day. I was sitting nursing my tiny newborn (11day old son) wondering what kind of world he was going to grow up in. Was so shocking to watch almost felt it wasn’t real
I had to wait to find out if my mum arrived safely, she landed in Singapore & it was showing on the screens and thought I was a film, probably exhausted and then landed in Perth to her husband telling her what had happened. Glad she didn’t know whilst flying.
My son just turned 18, and i hope nothing like that happens again, my younger son was born on 12/7 just after 7/7 also

I was doing my art a-level class prep work and the teacher sent us home. There wasn't much social media then so I didn't know the depth of the situation until I got home and logged in. Then I panicked because my parents worked in central London like the very centre. Horrible day honestly.

At work, a colleague who had gone home for lunch called and told us to put on the TV, we did and watched it not sure if it was an accident until the second plane.

I was working in Berlin, went to an Internet cafe every day after work to get my emails. Instead of playing music they were playing the news but none of the Americans there understood it... had to tell them to log on to cnn to see what was happening.
Strange and frightening time.

I was in the London newsroom of the newspaper I worked for. My dearest friend worked in Canary Wharf, and for a short while there was talk that a plane was headed there. I called his mobile but it went to voicemail. I tried to leave a message but I couldn't get the words out. I realised it was the only time in my life I'd experienced absolute terror.

I can't remember what I was doing to be honest. I remember my husband coming home from work that evening and mentioning it.

I was 20 years old at work, my usually whip cracking boss called us all into his office to listen to it happening in the radio. We didn't have a TV at work, we were all shocked. I remember getting home and it being on all the channels and seeing the poor people jumping to their deaths. I had just lost my fiance to cancer so my world was already upside down but I remember not being able to make any sense of this. Trying to get into the mind of someone that felt their only option was to jump out of a multistory building, as well as the sheer horror of planes being hijacked. Terrifying.

I was at school as I was 10. The first I heard of it was when I got back from school. We were not sent home early and if any of the teachers knew they never mentioned it. It was not announced in an assembly or anything which I think was the correct way to handle it especially in the UK.

I got home to my older siblings watching it on the news. It looked horrific and for a 10 year old it was so confusing. I was wondering what was going to happen next! It really scared me and its stayed with me.

As a mum now watching the documentaries every year... Parents having to sit next to their kids on that plane sends chills down my spine.

I was a very young child when it happened. I was never told about it in detail, not at home, not in school. I don't know why. My first real awareness of it was the minutes silence on the anniversary, every year in Juniors. I remember staying silent in the playground alongside everybody else, but thinking inside 'I don't understand why we are doing this'. Even then, I don't think it was explained to me. It was just... something you did.

Obviously as I've grown into an adult, I've become aware, seen the videos, understood the significance as best I can having not really 'been there' at the time. What happened was absolutely horrific. But I'm sorry to say on an emotional level it holds no distinctive significance to me. To me, this feels like the world as I've always known - I suppose it is. It feels stranger to me to imagine a world where events of this nature (to different scales) didn't happen on a regular basis.

I never realised I felt that way until I'd just written this down. Thank you for making me think, OP.

Making a cuppa and tidying up, then I wandered back into the living room. Saw what I thought was a disaster movie on the tv. Sat and watched for about 30 seconds before I realised it was the news. Bloody awful feeling watching it.

I was at a funeral. Just as we were parking near the church the car radio said a plane had hit the WTC. Like some other posters I imagined a small plane so although it sounded serious we got out of the car and focused on the funeral. I was really shocked to turn the car radio on a couple of hours later to find the world had changed.

It sounds odd now but I went to the supermarket on the way home as I had planned. It was almost totally empty of course. The handful of customers and a few staff watched the second tower come down on a TV that was for sale.

I will never forget. Sat in a chemistry lesson at secondary (boarding) school when the headmistress came in to call one of the girls out of class. Her Dad worked in the WTC and didn't make it out. Horrendous.

I was away at college doing a levels. I had a half day and was doing coursework in front of the TV when it went to emergency broadcast.

The reporters didn't know what had happened, they were talking about a bomb or maybe a plane hitting the first tower, an accident maybe, no details just all this conflicting information. Then the second plane came into shot and hit the second tower.

Later in the year we watched the footage again as part of our course (crim psych). I didnt watch it - we were given the option not to - I never need to see it again, I'll never forget, it's permanently etched in my memory.

Those brave brave passengers that fought the hijackers and brought down the other plane were truly heroes.

I was on mat leave with DC1. I used to have TV news on as wallpaper when feeding. I particularly remember that I was patting them on my left shoulder when the 2nd plane hit. Such an awful day. Increasing disbelief as each stage unfolded.

I was 10 years old and in primary 6. I came home from school and my mum was watching it on the news. I remember being annoyed because Zzap was cancelled on CITV and saying why is this such a big deal planes crash all the time .

Also remember my mum being very worried because my grandparents were in Washington (they tried to visit the Pentagon the following day ).

At the time our topic at school was the USA and we had been given penpals the same age as us. I remember the next time mine wrote to me she wrote about how devestated they all were.

Even though I knew it was bad what had happened I still couldn't quite grasp it. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s and started reading about it and watching documentaries that I really learned what happened. I can't imagine how everyone watching tit unfold on the news at the time must have felt. To me it's a part of history and something I've grown up always knowing about but I know that for my mum and I'm sure every other adult at the time it was the day the world changed forever.

It was my very first shift on checkin for an airline , all flights cancelled I had no clue what was happening.

We were on holiday in Menorca.

I remember walking along a street in a resort and seeing a crowd of people gathered round a TV outside a bar. We stopped to see what was happening in time to see the second plane hit. I clearly recall the blood draining out of my face in shock.

Never forget.