A Writer’s Life asks today where we were when “the world stopped turning” on September 11, 2001.

Casting my mind back, I was in a barn conversion office just North of Gloucester. We were on a much needed coffee break in the post lunch slump. Discussing production or projections or something equally mundane, when a colleague came in from having a fag outside exclaiming that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Our boss turned on the television just in time to see the rolling news and the horrific site of a second passanger plane smashing into the other tower.

I remember him closing the meeting and telling us, that if we wanted, we could go home. All the radio stations were chaotically reporting chaotic scenes from America, reports of other crashes, which we soon learnt to be terror hijackings, were coming thick and bleakly through the AM radio station I was listening to.

Getting home was not really a blessing, I let the dog out, put the kettle on, had a cigarette and sat down in front of the television watching in disbelief as the same frames were played over and over again, until more shots came to light and the horror only intensified. This was really happening; America was under attack, and only 3 hours ago I had been carelessly stuffing my face with the free lunchtime sandwiches completely unaware as to what was about to happen would change world history for ever.

A wretched day.