We were on a 2 week vacation in Orlando. We left the house around to go to Dennys for brakfast. As we always do when in Orlando we put on the radio to listen to the 60’s channel. The announcer was telling us to turn to a news station to hear about what had happened. To be honest my first thought was ‘ Oh my God President Bush has been killed ‘. We turned to this news station & all we got was 20 minutes of adverts. Then someone was talking about a case of child abuse. We thought surely this can not be it. Then the station went live to New York & the reporter gabbling excitedly about the first plane going into one of the towers & that people were jumping out of the windows. We immediately thought that a plane had been off course. As we listened there was a tremondous boom & we could hear screaming crying & total chaos.

The reporter was sobbing ‘Jesus Christ! O my God! Oh Jesus’. The announcer in the station was yelling at him ‘Tell us what has happened, Whats going on’? In disbelief we heard him say that another palne had hit the other tower. We knew then this was terrorists. We went to Dennys. It was chaos. The chef kept running in & out of the kitchen giving reports what was happening. Our waitress was in a terrible state poor love as she knew someone who worked in WTC. My eldest daughter who has a degree in Modern History & her speciality is USA was frantically trying to work out what was going on. My youger daughter was distraught. She is not a good flyee & had to have hypnotherapy to make this trip. My eldest daughter said that dshe thought they were going for the seats of government. No sooner had she said this when a man run out of the kitchen screaming’ They’ve hit the Pentagon ! They’ve hit the pentagon !’ My husband & I just looked at each other. I wondered if I would ever see home again. We could not eat our breakfasts. We felt sick & very scared. We were thousands of miles from home. Fortunately we were not due to go home for another week.

We went to Sea World but had to leave after only being in there for about 20 minutes as we were told there were planes missing & that theme parks could be a prime target. We went back to our villa & sat glued to the tv for the rest of the day. That week passed in a blur but we had the best time with the people of America. Because we were Brits we were treated almost like royalty. People thanked us for our support & commented how wonderful the Queen & Tony Blair were. In a funny kind of way I am glad we were there. We have the greatest admiration for the people of the US. Our hearts, prayers & love are with you on the anniversary of this terrible tradgedy