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UA Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Centre - image by UpstateNYer

Today, as with many people around the world, I will be remembering what I was doing ten years ago on this very date – the very date when the largest terrorist attacks ever to be unleashed upon the United States took place, and the effect that day had upon me, and indeed the world. My parents, who lived through the 1960s, have always talked about “Where were you when they shot JFK?” – 9/11 was my generation’s JFK moment – everyone remembers where they were, what they were doing, and what effect it had upon them.

I was, actually, off sick from work on that day. I had been working for several weeks at a small design studio based in Henley on Thames, and woke up that morning feeling rather poorly. I had just called the studio to say that I wasn’t coming in, and then turned on the television, thinking that I would see what was going on in the world before crawling back into bed, when the screen showed a skyscraper on fire, somewhere in the US. Interested, I sat down to listen to what the newsreader was saying, about how a plane had struck one of the famous twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, and, being live, rolling news, had already started babbling about how this was a terrible accident, and no-one knows how this could have happened. A few minutes later, and a silver shape bolted through the picture, from the right, and struck the other tower – it was the second plane. The world began to realise that this was no mere accident, and we were witnessing an event that would throw shockwaves across the world for years to come.

The shadow of that day has been cast across the events of the past ten years – wars in the Middle East, terrorist alerts across the world, including our own 7/7 here in London, racial and religious tensions, it’s even permeated our culture and everyday lives. 9/11 only took place in a couple of hours, but it has had a lasting legacy. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of situations – the way the US is viewed by people in the Middle East, the actions and subsequent accountability of those in charge, both in America and on this side of the pond, the perspective on, and also from, the Islamic world, and much more. I can honestly say that 9/11 for me was not just a tragedy, but also an awakening into looking deeper into politics and events both here and overseas.

I could go into detail here as to the way I feel events folded after that day, the whys and the wherefores, but I think, as a mark of respect to those who were affected by the events that took place in the US ten years ago, I’ll leave it at just a remembrance of those events, and a hope that the world never sees its like again.