As we mark the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attack, I am repeating a post I first wrote on the first anniversary in 2012.
11th September 2001 - I was working at Library Headquarters that day in the Local Studies Room when my daughter phoned to tell me that a plane had crashed into the twin towers in New York. I had visited the city many many years ago, long before the twin towers were built and I was a bit hazy about them, but my first reaction was "what an appalling accident".
Photograph, courtesy of Pixabay.
I told colleagues of the disaster and we logged
onto the BBC website and saw the dreadful news of the second strike.
There was an American visitor in the Study Room and we broke the news
to him - he immediately went outside to phone friends and family. We
then dashed to the Training Room where there was a television. Two
work colleagues had daughters holidaying in New York and had the
agonizing wait of days, with communications down, to hear that they
were safe. Words cannot describe the horror. What struck in my mind most was the experience of those on the planes who had left Boston, to discover they were flying to their death - yet whose thoughts were to phone family expressing their love.
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A
week later we were on holiday on the west coast of Scotland and took
the ferry from Oban to sail to the Isle of Mull and then onto the Isle
of Iona. It was the most perfect September day you could have asked for
- sunny blue skies, a calm deep blue sea, a panorama of hills and water, with the
seals bobbing around the ferry. The atmosphere was strangely quiet
and subdued. There were many American tourists on the boat, and people
were going up to them to shake their hands and extend their sympathy.
Sailng out of Oban for Mull in the distance.
The tiny island of Iona, off the southwest coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides,
Is top of my list of favourite places. It is only 1.5 miles wide by 3
miles long, with a population of around 120 permanent residents, but
everyone talks about the magical nature of this seat of Scottish
Christianity where St. Columba founded his Abbey in 563AD. Later it
became a place of pilgrimage and learning, and over 40 of Scotland's
earliest kings were buried there. It is
amazing that even though the boat seemed busy, visitors spread out on
the small island and it seems as if you have the place to yourself.
It was so peaceful - a beautiful haven in what suddenly seemed a very evil world.
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Here in this country, we all have very specific memories of that day. I saw the plane fly into the second tower on TV as I was getting ready for work and didn't believe what I was seeing. Then we all watched as the buildings imploded on themselves. Living close to Washington, D.C., we were all very afraid especially after we heard the Pentagon had been hit. I remember not knowing what to do, do I go get my kids out of school or leave them there in lock down?
ReplyDeleteThen there were days of sadness and spontaneous tears. I wish we lived in a world without terrorists attacks, but we don't. I don't know what to say about that.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on a terrible day.
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