(pains And Regrets Collection) .... The Eleventh Of September Comments

I was teaching as a substitute teacher on the eleventh of September this year (2008) , in a school I know well. I should not have been surprised when a boy of eleven, far too young to remember the event, reminded me that today was the anniversary of 9/11.

I hadn't been aware till then what today's date was, and then I was reminded of where I was when the news arrived on our TV screens here. Then, again, I was teaching. It was not until I emerged from a very boring meeting after school that I found the staff-room in unaccustomed silence, with a TV monitor switched on to the recurrent images of the terrible events in New York, my colleages sitting dumb-struck. My own spontaneous reaction was extreme - my first thought was fear for my daughter - was World War Three beginning? I shook, felt shocked and ill, for many hours afterwards.
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