Musings on 9/11

I think everyone remembers where they were five years ago today when the planes hit the towers.

I certainly do. I was at my Dad's house. I had taken delivery of my brand new Ford Puma the previous Friday, and was in Melksham visiting my sister Amanda, and we stopped at Dad's so I could show off the car.

We were sitting in the kitchen chatting when a newsflash came on that a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. Obviously we assumed at the time that it was an accident, until we watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the South Tower. I remember Dad saying, "Oh God, they've hit the other one". Suddenly it was clearly no accident.

So what should have been a happy day became an horrific one. For the only time in my life, I was glad my mother was not around, as I would have hated her to watch thousands of people being murdered on daytime television.

As I drove back to Swindon, my thoughts turned to the short-term future, wondering whether I had watched the beginning of World War 3. There was a war of course, in Afghanistan, but I don't think I ever realised how far-reaching the war on terror would be.

I grew up in an age of terrorism. Growing up in the late 70s and 80s I remember many of the IRA atrocities - the Airey Neave car bombing, the Lord Mountbatten bombing, and the Hyde Park nail bombings, to name but a few. Nothing quite compared with what I saw on television that day, and none of those terrible events would ever change the way I live the way 9/11 did.

I've been determined to live my life as normally as possible after 9/11. I remember people thinking I was brave to fly to Crete on holiday a few weeks later. For me not travelling was simply not an option. I was determined not to let the terrorists influence my choices. I think most Brits and Americans think the same way I do, brave souls that we are.

But there are a lot of things we have no control over. There are longer queues at airports. I was in Piccadilly tube station once when it was evacuated due to a security alert. Shortly after the London tube bombings, I was on a train when there was an announcement about an "unattended item". On both occasions I don't mind admitting I was petrified.

But I think the most pertinent reminder of how much the world has changed came this year when I was at Lord's. As usual I arrived in good time, found my seat, left my bag and went for a walk around the ground, watching the players practise in the nets. When I returned to my seat a security guard reprimanded me for leaving my bag unattended. "People were getting worried," he told me.

The terrorists will not win. They can make threats, they can bomb, they can murder innocent people, but they will never break the spirit of our two great nations or of any other countries in the free world. We may have to change the way we go about our day-to-day lives, but we will continue to enjoy our freedom. The way New York responded to 9/11 and London to 7/7 is testament to that.

As a youngster I loved seeing images of the World Trade Centre, as well as of other New York skyscrapers (probably had something to do with all those Spider-Man comics). Now I have pictures of the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building on the wall in my bedroom. I bought them after 9/11. They stand for things like freedom, democracy and a free economy - things the terrorists will never, ever take away from us.

This is dedicated to the 2,973 people who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.