September 11 anniversary: How Bradford people were involved

Bradford-born Diane Duguid was at home in New York watching the tragedy unfold on TV, fearing for her husband and two sons - all officers with the New York Police Department. Husband George had narrowly avoided flying into New York from picking up a prisoner in South Carolina. After the twin towers collapsed, their son George junior was involved in recovering and trying to identify victims.

In 2002 Diane returned to Bradford and presented the T&A with a plaque commemorating the work of New York police in the 9/11 tragedy. Looking back, Diane says: “We feel in the US that our President has given back to the Taliban all those arms which we fear will be used against us again. September 11 will be a sad day here. Our thoughts are with the families of those who died and continue to die from cancers related to 9/11.”

Shortly after the attacks, Vicki Garwood of Denholme flew to New York to help recover bodies from the World Trade Centre wreckage. She spent four weeks as a volunteer with the American Red Cross, spending 12 hours a night in the still burning wreckage. “It was like a big graveyard,” she told the T&A on her return. “We were encouraged to talk to firemen about things like football, to take their minds off it. The firefighters, police and iron workers are one big family, they’re so close.”

Vikki volunteered after watching the tragedy on TV. An ex-army driver, she transported rubble from the site to warehouses. “What really got me was the last day when I looked around Ground Zero in daylight. I just stood and cried,” she said.

Anna Pratt was on the NY underground when their train suddenly stopped. Anna, of Silsden, was 19 and had spent the summer working at a children’s camp and was touring the US with her boyfriend before university. The couple had decided to spend the day sightseeing in New York and boarded the subway for lower Manhattan just after both towers were hit. “Two stops later the train lost power and came to a halt. We were at a station two blocks from the World Trade Centre,” said Anna. “It started to fill with white smoke, we were told to get to the back. I was wondering how the hell we were going to get out. The doors wouldn’t open and people were beginning to panic and pray. A fireman finally came and opened them and told us to escape through the normal exit. When we emerged there was dust and debris everywhere. They were telling us to keep walking north, it was quite dark from all the smoke around us.”

Suddenly police told them to run down a side street as the second tower was on fire. “You could see people at the windows trying to escape,” said Anna. “We saw the first tower collapse, just eight minutes after we’d escaped from the subway. People were screaming, it was obvious that some knew people in the building. We saw people injured on the floor, others were hysterical. We decided to get out of there and started to walk north.”

Called out to survey a New York oil tanker, Michael Quain of Keighley was working in a hotel room five miles from the World Trade Centre on the morning of September 11. “I took a break to watch the start of a beautiful clear blue day,” he recalled. “From my sixth floor window I could see the Manhattan skyline with the Empire State Building on my right and twin towers on my left. I set to work and three hours later stood up and looked out of the window. Strange, there was thick black smoke billowing from what I’d thought to be the World Trade Centre. Perhaps they’re chimneys in a power station or something, I thought. Noting it was well after 9am, I phoned my contact in New York to arrange my schedule. As we were talking he heard a fire had been reported at the World Trade Centre. I switched on the TV. It was like watching the old disaster movie Towering Inferno, only this was real. I looked out of the window again; the smoke was much thicker and rising into the sky. I called my wife, Alison, at her shop in Silsden. She’d just heard the news on the radio and was worried I might be somewhere near. As we were talking the unbelievable happened. I was looking at the screen and turned to look out of the window, to see it with my own eyes, and could only say: ‘Oh my God, one of them is falling down. Now there will be thousands dead’’.

“I dialled the number of our London office but in those few minutes the phone system was completely jammed. Mid-afternoon I went downstairs to a scene of chaos. The lobby was crowded with people who’d been evacuated from the airport. Hotel and conference rooms were converted to dormitories where dozens of people slept on camp beds. I spent the rest of the day sitting in my room in horror, watching New York burn and reflecting on when the morning sun just a few hours before shone on the most famous skyline in the world.”

Among the Yorkshire people killed in the 9/11 attacks was Howard Selwyn from Leeds, who moved to Long Island with his wife and two children in 1981, and Caleb Dack from Wakefield who worked for a global eCommerce consultancy and died at a trade show in the Windows on the World restaurant. Brother and sister Michael and Christine Egan, from Hull, died alongside each other. On a trip to New York, Christine had visited Michael’s office in the South Tower, where he worked as an insurance executive.

Today Bradford’s Peace Museum sends a “message of peace to all those impacted around the world.” A spokesman said: “The Peace Museum does not want our century to be defined by one day of violence and the wars that followed. Instead, we hope that these events show us the importance of respecting all our neighbours, overcoming violence at all levels and building strong, peaceful communities for the future.”

Many people have been in touch with the T&A to share their memories of 9/11. Here are some of them: Margaret Lewis was at home in Long Island. Her husband had flown from JFK on business the night before: “I was having cable TV hooked up and the first picture on the screen was the first tower being hit. I told the cable guy to get home to Brooklyn. All the planes were grounded so my husband drove over 1,000 miles to get home. The first responder funerals went on for months, never have I felt so bleak. We rallied round to support them with fundraisers and food drives.”

Paula Brian was at Universal Studios in Florida: “We were told to leave the park as there was a threat it could happen there. It was frightening, we couldn’t contact our family back home for four days.”

Mark Townsend was “Sitting in a little newspaper office in Murphy, North Carolina, listening to it unfold on the radio. We didn’t have access to news wire photos so we did our best to take photos off a 16-in TV. Still published a story about it later that day.”

Andy Morrell was working in Newark, across the Hudson River: “Everyone assumed the first plane was a small private or sight-seeing plane. Once the second plane hit we realised it was no accident.”

Graham Booth worked for a US company with offices in Wall Street: “I was working from home in Ilkley and saw it on the news. I rang our London office to speak to our manager, who was from Pennsylvania. Several US citizens worked there. They put the TV news on in the meeting room and no-one got any work done that day.”

Nick Haddington recalled: “I was 16 on holiday in Canada with my parents. We had to stay longer as all the airports had American airliners on the runways.”

Phillip Kett: “Walking through Leeds city centre, I saw people crowded around Currys and Rumbelows windows. I presumed there was some crazy TV giveaway. It wasn’t until I got home that I realised they were all watching live as the full horror unfolded in front of them.”