7/11

Dear Blog,

                I must confess that I have always been sceptical when people have claimed to remember precisely where they were or remembered what they were doing when a significant news story broke. I cannot remember where I was or what I was doing when Kennedy was assassinated. I cannot remember where I was or what I was doing when Elvis died. I cannot remember where I was or what I was doing when Lennon was shot.

                But

                Ten years ago I was teaching mathematics at Blue Coat Church of England School in Coventry. I had a stack of marking to do. I worked through my lunch hour and into the afternoon to get on top of that weekend’s homeworks. As I was free in the afternoon session, earlier in the day I had ask if it was OK if I went to pick my elder daughter up from her place of work to take her to the dentist. I hadn’t quite finished my marking, so I took the remainder of the unmarked books with me to complete while I waited for the dentist to do his bit (!). In the car I tuned into the radio. I had just missed the start of the afternoon play on radio 4 when I set off from school; I thought I could pick up the plot as I drove. The narrator kept repeating himself and despite my best efforts I could not make head or tale of the story line. I abandon ed the plot and switched my tape on to listen to music. I sat outside my daughter’s office for her to come out. I completed my marking, and switched the radio to radio 4 to listened to the programme after the play. The fact that the play was still on didn’t register as significant; the narrator was still babbling on.The play seemed like a poor man’s version of H.G.Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’ with the narrator doing an appalling take of Orsen Wells. I switched off. I dozed. My daughter came running across the road from her office; why so keen to get to the dentist? She told me about the Towers.

                  I must confess that I am no longer as sceptical when people claim to remember precisely where they were or remembered what they were doing when a significant news story broke.

                   Colin