One day

‘History is not a dull subject,’ warned Caryl Phillips, the novelist, at the end of his 9/11 Letter. ‘It’s a vital, contested narrative, peopled with witnesses to events which touch both head and heart. It’s the most important school subject because not remembering is the beginning of madness.’ Perhaps he should have said ‘not remembering correctly’ in this week of commemoration of the events of ten years ago.

Phillips’s letter was the most powerful of the five that were specially written for Radio 4’s Book of the Week (and produced by Julian May and Beaty Rubens). Most of them were fuelled by personal memories of being in the city on that day, but only Phillips gave us a witness account that was objective enough to carry a deeper meaning. He was in New York, teaching at Columbia University, a ‘resident alien’ with a British passport. He stepped out on to Hudson Street in Lower Manhattan on his way to class and noticed that people on the sidewalk were rooted to the spot and looking south.