It is perhaps the blackest of comic ironies that the day which made the American emergency services into heroes is the same as their phone number. That’s how you know it was real life.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. Everyone was back from lunch and a colleague from another team came over in search of someone with internet access.

"Someone’s just texted me to say a plane has hit the World Trade Center" he said. He’d assumed it was a joke – like the message someone had had a few days before to say there had been an earthquake in Brighton which measured seven on the Richter scale. It seemed absurd that a plane could accidentally hit a target which was, by the scale of New York, miniscule. As happens when people who don’t have any facts are determined to discuss something rather than working a number of theories sprang up. It could be a publicity seeker – like that guy who landed in Red Square – and rather than hitting the tower he’d landed on the roof. Or something. Nothing serious anyway.

Then we found someone trusted by the Company to access the internet and a Holmsian truth was confirmed.

Thereby signifying the significance of absence. The fact that we couldn’t access the BBC News website was the first indication that this was likely not a prank between one chum and another.

Phone calls were made to those lucky enough not to be stuck in an office and the first news came through. That was about two thirty and every few minutes a new bit of information, more terrible than the last, was reported. It wasn’t just a plane that hit, it was a big plane. With hundreds of people on it. And there was a second one. Also with hundreds of people on. And a third plane has hit the Pentagon. We’re all so familiar with the facts now that it’s hard to remember exactly what was learned at the time and what was discovered later.

Two things I did know – planes flying in to New York were involved and my parents were flying into New York at the time. A bit of mental arithmetic told me there was no way they were on any of the planes involved thus far. But it’s only with hindsight that we know there were four planes. They would’ve been about two thirds of the way across the ocean when the attacks started. What if there were five planes? Or six? Or seven?

Then it becomes a clash between imagination and common sense. Do people from Stockport who play golf and make their own jam get drawn into acts of international terrorism? Probably not but then that’s what makes them innocents and terrorists like innocents. Indeed, they like them so much that they kill them.

I tried not to think about it until I could get home and put myself in the hands of the BBC. Television rather than internet as the net was failing its first true crisis. It couldn’t cope with the intense traffic as several billion people searched for information. Some got through – like the sick bastards who were putting alleged chunks of the WTC on eBay within minutes of the collapsing towers. News 24 eventually told me that America was immediately closing its airspace and that planes were being diverted into Canada or told to return to where they came from. So that’s how they came to spend the best part of a week in Newfoundland. Sleeping in a school and perversely enjoying the Blitz spirit of people in a crisis. Phone calls were rationed but they were ok.

And breathe.

Few afternoons have ever brought about quite so much change. America woke up to the fact that much of the world hates it. Their response was that the world is wrong and they will keep firing missiles until the world apologises and starts loving America. President Bush had his moment of being Winston Churchill and will no doubt shamelessly exploit the footage as he bids for another term in office. Enquiries have been conducted at great expense to try and find as many people to blame as possible. Wars have been fought, more lives have been lost, regimes have been toppled and civil wars started. Security has been heightened and paranoia has increased tenfold. A documentary has polarised America and threatens to dominate the election campaign. The EU has been ripped apart as pro- and anti- America factions have formed. Lawsuits have been filed as the greedy attempt to pick holes in the actions of those under the greatest of stress that afternoon. Bitter battles have been fought over what should replace the towers on the site of ground zero. Conspiracy theorists have tried to prove that the whole thing was orchestrated by the White House. Children have grown up without parents.

Two days later WWE broadcast a live Smackdown in its usual Thursday night slot. I only mention this because they had inserts where any WWE superstar who wanted to could say what was on their mind. Three of these show the range of feeling in America at that time. Ivory tearfully told us that the people who did this were evil but that we shouldn’t ever forget that they are the few and that most of the world is good. Bradshaw shouted that we should find the bastards that did it and kill them. Stephanie McMahon said that, just as her family had faced the federal government and won, so America would beat the odds and win. (Her father was charged with distributing illegal anabolic steroids)

Compassion, revenge and self interest.

When fate dialled 911 that afternoon they got through to heroes. Those are the ones that should be remembered today. What happened before and after cannot taint the fact that we saw the best of humanity in the worst of circumstances.