I was at home after spending the morning at Albrighton Writers. I switched the television to watch some detective drama and then I switched channels because I thought it was a movie - one I didn't want to watch.
And then I realised....
No it wasn't a movie, it was happening, it was real, it was horrific and I remember sitting on the sofa and crying.
One disaster after another, the twin towers, the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, it was like rapid gunfire, bang, bang, bang and suddenly thousands of lives were lost. And, despite living in a village in Shropshire, I was frightened, I was very frightened. I wanted my family home there and then because I didn't know where or when it was going to end.
But then I looked out of the window. My street was just the same, my normality was intact and I knew my family were safe. It was then I thanked God but....
On another street in a different country peoples' normality had changed forever. Someone was doing the same as me, looking out of the window and seeing the world change. Someone saw people plunging to their deaths, someone saw flames that they knew incinerated flesh and blood, perhaps even their own flesh and blood, their partners, their family perhaps even the only person they had in the world who loved them.
Images were flashed across the world of terror, peoples' lives changing forever and I watched in the comfort of my own home and wept.
Ten years on, those images are as real today as they were they then. Ten years on, we must never forget. Ten years on, I'm at home and my family are safe but still I'll remember and yes I shall weep.
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