I reflect on the painful passage of 25 years in our national life, and what we’ve lost since 9/11.
Bin Laden Failed. Trump is Trying to Finish the Job.
The Elephant in the Room, September 11, 2026
I reflect on the painful passage of 25 years in our national life, and what we’ve lost since 9/11.
Rick, Thank you for your honest portrayal of how it was. Many of us identify with your pain and clear message.
I remember fundraising for Greenpeace on Borough High street, just across London Bridge from the city.
The odd thing was, I was told about events in New York twice before it sunk in, the first time by my phone support who was a gentleman prone to dramatic embellishment so I put it down to Rob being Rob.
The second time was listening to the radio as I took a comfort break. They were talking about planes hitting buildings and I assumed they were talking about the Congo or somewhere else war torn.
Then a huge wave of people started coming over London Bridge. They took the width of the bridge to themselves - cars backed up for them. They had the determined march of city workers, some were red eyed from tears.
It suddenly became very real. The whole city was being evacuated. I called the office and said it was inappropriate us being there. I said people were angry and upset and did not appreciate being solicited for monthly donations. I said it was putting my team in danger. They were reluctant (honestly f-k Greenpeace) but eventually saw my point and let me send the team home.
No tubes were running so I walked back to the office. A guy called Kemi from Sierra Leone helped me carry my bags. I’ve never forgotten that kindness. We walked back to Farringdon under low flying planes waiting for their spot to land.
They had the TV on in the office. I was shocked and frightened, horrified by what I saw. I was more shocked by 9/11 than by the later attack on London. London after all gets blown up fairly regularly. But America was supposed to be invulnerable.
The response of my colleagues was Pikeresque to put it mildly. Greenpeace attracted radicals and they were eager to point out the number of kids who die from malnutrition etc, my grief was ethnocentric and Westernised. They’d all read Noam Chomsky.
Water aid had just taken us on to recruit supporters. There was a tradition of our clients to occasionally throw swanky feedings for us street based plebs every
couple of months. Was it still on? Well the buffet was already ordered. There would be wine.
The sun was low on the horizon as we walks to the Water Aid’s HQ in Southwark, where it’s huge glass fronted windows looking out over the Thames. I was still a little shocked by my collegues response, by the faces of the city workers trudging home, not knowing if their friends in the NY office were alive or dead. I wasn’t hungry, but there were plentiful bottles of red wine. I think Emma Puddy took some home in her back pack. It was a beautiful evening, and I sat on the pine floor of this building drinking wine and watching the river and the moment where the setting sun catches the glass fronts of the buildings setting them on fire. Normally it’s beautiful but then it felt profoundly disturbing, like the city itself was burning in solidarity.
I ended up in a pub with some of our Pakistani fundraisers. This being London they were actual Pakistanis not Brits with Pakistani heritage. They shared my shock that the U.S. was so vulnerable. They were secular (hence pub) but afraid of what revenge the wounded giant would inflict on the world. But mostly we trauma bonded over the horrifying shock and the number of dead. (The original estimated death toll was 6,000 as they hadn’t accounted for most people in WC2 self evacuating before the second plane hit). We felt somehow a page of history had been turned and we mourned and smoked to many cigarettes.
That’s my 9-11 story from the U.K. I’ve never told it before mostly because it is irrelevant compared to the experience of New Yorkers and US citizens who were there. For a long time I was ashamed of my ‘imperialist’ grief, before I realised it was perfectly possible to be a left wing activist and to mourn atrocities, whereas my then friends have got bitter and cynical - the last time I saw them they advised me to ‘buy gold’. I lost contact with my 9-11 support group pretty quickly - one went back to Uni, one left for an indoor job when winter hit, but I will always remember that dark muggy night we drank together at the end of the known world.