I suspect that there are very few people who can't remember what they were doing on this day last year. At about this time on 11th September 2001 most people probably hadn't heard of Osama Bin Laden. This time last year Terrorism was something that caused pain for a few families (mine included) and brief spells of anger/sympathy in the public as a whole.

I took this day off work last year, I first heard the news on the car radio in the car park of McDonalds in Botley, Oxford. The news report stated that an aircraft had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Centre, there was little more information than that at the time. I assumed that there had been an accident and maybe a light aircraft had hit the tower as happened with the Empire State some years ago.
By the time we reached our home in Bicester it had become clear that the aircraft was actually a passenger jet. I switched on CNN, they were live at the scene and the images were horrific. Like millions of others, I watched the second plane hit the other tower and this incident turn from an accident to an act of war. I watched both towers collapse from the safety of my home. It took a long time to fully appreciate the sheer magnitude of the events unfolding on the screen in front of me, I watched until the early hours, trying to make some sense of it all.