One of my earliest memories is from 1986, the disaster at Chernobyl. I was too young to know what had happened and its implications, but I remember the worried look on my mother’s face and having to keep windows closed.
15 years later the next big disaster happened, 9/11. I remember I had just come home from a friend’s house after school and was on the livingroom floor talking to the same friend and watching some music tv. Flicking through the channels during an ad break I came across the live news report minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember mentioning it to her on the phone with something like “oh, there’s been an accident in New York, a plane crashed”. Obviously it later turned out to be much more than that.
Four years later I had left school, moved to the UK and started working for a company in the South East. I remember the day when a supervisor told us what had happened early in the morning and I proceeded to call some friends and family in Germany who never quite understood that a town 20 miles from London isn’t in London. The day itself doesn’t carry many memories, apart from the public transport being delayed by many hours which really wasn’t that surprising.
What I do remember is the time I was at in my life at the time. It was a transitional period having just moved from the first place I had been properly settled in the UK due to finding something with a better location for commuting to work. I also remember changing departments at work and some friends finishing university. Most of all I remember how much my life changed in the last five years, the friends I’ve made, the things that I got interested in and what became important to me.
It’s interesting that it feels like such a long time ago yet at the same time like no time has passed at all.
