I haven’t not seen film of 9/11 just because I no longer watch tv
I had spent the day of the attack in the archive & the library, immersed in Victorian England
In retrospect, one of the oddest things is that I had neither heard nor overheard anyone relaying or discussing the news. People just do not seem to have been discussing it in public
I had learned of the Kennedy assassination for example on a bus in the Old Kent Road when a man got on & announced it to all & sundry
On 9/11 I knew something had happened as soon as I opened the front door. In those days my idea of a burglar alarm was to leave lamps & the radio on timer switches. Radio5 was clearly in rolling news, not football, format at 8.10pm
I sat down to listen & by 8.20 was shouting at the radio Tell us what happened, not just peoples reactions, & wondering whether it was worth plugging in the tv & trying to coax a (probably green) picture out of it. But since whatever had happened was clearly in America, not the UK, I thought telly might well have reverted to normal programming & I was better off concentrating on listening
It was after 8.30 when they finally went to a news summary
As they say, the pictures are better on the radio
Though in the circumstances better is hardly the right word, I made the decision then & there that I would be able to see events more clearly if I did not put myself through that particular emotional wringer
And anyway news organisations here soon made the decision that nothing was to be gained by showing the footage over & over again, so there has not been all that much of a chance
