I was 7 years old and had just started year 3. Was walking home with my mum and brother excited to see the second half of whatever Digimon episode would be shown on ITV that afternoon (we never arrived home in time to see the first half of the episode). I turn on the TV for my brother and I and it's the news. I change channel and it's the news. I changed channel again and the only channel I found showing regular programming I believe was the fuzzy reception of Channel 5 we got (we were on analogue TV then). But I do remember nothing but the shots of the World Trade Centre towers collapsing and smoke. As a 7 year old I was too young to really comprehend how awful it was but the fact that it took over all the channels did lead me to believe it was important.

I don't remember much more about that evening as we were usually send to bed at 7pm (yes, we were the kids who watched other kids play outside while we were confined to our bedroom) - perhaps we watched a Pokémon VHS or something.

The next day our teacher gave everyone counselling on the events of the previous day (I imagine this was done worldwide in schools and offices) but again, we were 7 years old and not quite at the level of comprehending the human disaster of the attack. When we were allowed to ask questions about the events of the attacks, there were some questions like "who did it?" etc, but some of the other boys in my class had more curiosity about the methods. One boy asked why they [the terrorists] could have just crashed loads of cars into the bottom of the towers instead (again, we were 7) to which point the teacher just had to try and explain how that wouldn't have worked. As much as our teacher at that time was my least favourite primary school teacher, I do now admire how she didn't snap at the boy asking about destruction methods but thinking back at it, I imagine she was just experienced enough that none of us meant any malice by our curiosity.

When 7/7 happened, (I was in year 6 then/11 years old) we were all very scared - we learned of it from an emergency call our teacher received from her husband and she was just in shock at the news of the bombings (I think he called to say he was okay). Some of us panicked, others cried as we all had parents working in the centre of London (central relative to Isleworth anyway). We still weren't that smart on terrorism though and one of the boys in my class was crying saying that it was France attacking London because we had won the 2012 Olympic bid over Paris a day or two before, and with me being a gullible idiot believed him. He convinced me in a shaky and panicky state in afternoon breaktime that we'd see fighter jets flying over the playground "any moment now".