9/11: 'It was humbling' - North Yorkshire firefighter who went to funerals in New York

Bruce Reid, now 55, who retired from North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service last year after 36 years working across the county, including York, was one of a small number of British firefighters who made it to New York in the days after the Twin Towers were attacked.

Bruce, along with colleagues Steve Willey, Phil Wheelhouse, and Owen Hines, had to arrange the trip themselves, managing to get hold of Rick Steinburg, the coordinating officer of the New York fire department.

Bruce, who now lives in Knaresborough, spoke out on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

He said: “Rick Steinburg said he’d ‘absolutely love to have us’. So many simultaneous funerals were happening at once for the 343 firefighters who died, so there would be quite low attendance of off-duty firefighters at each.

“9/11 happened on the Tuesday. We got one of the first planes to New York on the Thursday, going out in fire service uniform, and Virgin Atlantic bumped us up to first class.”

They arrived to catastrophic scenes – Ground Zero was cordoned off as the rubble still burned two day later. Firemen were still searching for bodies amongst the debris.

Bruce and his colleagues attended four funerals across the city and a Sunday memorial service – and saw only one other international firefighter, a fireman from London.

He said: “It has affected my life, as I saw first-hand the devastation, and how grateful people can be. People in the US were so generous, we couldn’t buy anything, they showed so much appreciation for us being there.

“I have a constant reminder I see every day of 9/11 – I took photos on my camera to get a whole view of Ground Zero and joined them together on a three-foot long canvas board.

“I feel enormously proud to have jumped through a lot of hoops to go. It was humbling to be at the heart of people's lives, it will sit with me forever.”