My local newspaper, the Linlithgow Gazette, asked me to write a short piece for this week's issue after the editor read my blog post recounting my experience of 9/11:
"It shows how innocent the times were that I wasn’t concerned about smoke billowing into the sky as I commuted to my job as an art director. But at work I found my colleagues glued to the TV - a plane had crashed into the Twin Towers.
My wife Kirsty and I had been living in New York for 18 months on September 11th 2001; we felt like we were just settling in.
For 17 minutes everyone thought a private plane had accidentally crashed into the North Tower.
At 9.03 the world changed. We witnessed the killing of hundreds of innocent people live on TV as the second plane hit the South Tower.
As the horror unfolded it became obvious that thousands would die - the World Trade Centre contained more people than live in Linlithgow.
Afterwards the air was filled with a sickening smell, heartbreaking home-made missing person posters fluttered everywhere and The Stars and Stripes appeared outside homes and flew for the remaining 3 years we lived in America.
Americans disagreed on how to react but as phrases like “War on Terror”, “Axis of Evil” and “WMD” entered the language it was clear how the World would respond.
A decade ago I could not have imagined that the events of that Tuesday morning would play such a significant role in our lives today."
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