September 11th 2001, I was 6 years old. I can always remember as a child being in love with New York; I had never been of course, but it was always a dream of mine to visit. My brother had visited two weeks prior to the horrific day of 9/11 and I was excited for his return to learn about my dream city.

September 11th 2001 is my first vivid memory that I can remember and it has stuck with me ever since. As I live in Wales in the UK it was in the afternoon that news was unfolding of the Twin Towers being struck by aircraft. I had been collected from primary school by my mother and my older brother who was 20 at the time and we were struggling to open our back door as it was old and become jammed very easily. We had finally got in and it was always our tradition to watch an Australian show called neighbours after school but a quarter of the way through the show, it was interrupted by a news flash and live videos of the second plane flying into the second tower, I couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of what had happened at that age but the look of worry that spread across my mother and brothers faces along with frightening images appearing on my TV screen was enough to send a horrible, heart dropping feeling to the pit of my stomach. I began to cry and was then sent upstairs to my room with my brother as my mother did not want me to see what was happening. Days after the events, nothing felt the same and I went to school feeling fearful.

Those events on 9/11 did nothing to dispel my love for New York however, it just made me want to travel there all the more to pay my respects to those who died and to mourn that day for myself, amongst many others who were touched by those events. I will never forget that day and my thoughts will never wander far from those who died and the families and friends affected.