The age of Big Brother and famous football victories seems like another time. But did the terrorists’ planes, as it seemed, really come out of nowhere?
There is always an eeriness in the archives of days that immediately precede tragedy. The newspapers of the day before the Titanic’s maiden voyage, or the reports from the eve of President Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, forever after take on the shadow of innocent, sunlit photos of a suddenly lost loved one. We have come to accept that, 20 years ago this week, on the morning of 11 September, the world as we knew it changed for ever. But from what? What were the immediate befores of that indelible after?
I’ve spent the last few days reading through the papers of the week beginning 3 September 2001, looking for any clues that suggested those were times of relative security and a certain naivety or blitheness, at least in the affluent corners of the west; wondering, with hindsight, if the terrorists’ planes really came out of nowhere, with their era-defining message of hate, as it appeared to so many.