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http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552757,00.html

'We Watched Our Child Die, Unaware'

Special report: terrorism in the US

Nick Paton Walsh
Sunday September 16, 2001
The Observer

While Charles and Pauline Berkeley watched on television as the second plane hit the World Trade Centre, their grief for the loss of others was slowly overwhelmed by the fear that they had seen their son die.

They knew their son Graham was travelling that day from his home in Boston. From their secluded bungalow in Shrewsbury they called his cell phone and emailed him repeatedly. He did not answer.

At 10.30pm their phone rang. It was United Airlines informing them that Graham had been on Flight 175, the second plane to hit the World Trade Centre at 9.03am that day.

'At first we thought it was a hoax,' said Charles. 'But then United rang back. We had seen the fireball ourselves and knew to expect the worst,' said Charles, his voice suddenly frail. 'We watched our child die, unaware. He was a brilliant boy - a brilliant man.'

Unlike other hijacked passengers Graham, 37, a British IT consultant living in Boston, did not manage to make a call on his phone before the crash. But Charles believes his son would not have gone quietly. He knows he would have put up a fight when Marawn al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald al-Shehri, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi took control of the plane. 'He was an assertive lad,' he said.

The Berkeleys are one of several hundred British families wrought with grief after Tuesday's massacre. Graham Berkeley was the only Briton believed by officials to be on board any of the four hijacked jets.

Charles can only reason that Graham's love for his work and travel - the things that made his life so content - put him on that flight. 'He loved work and the freedoms of the United States,' he said.

Graham had intended to travel with his colleague so they could discuss the software conference they were attending in LA. But to little avail - they chose separate flights, his colleague travelling on American Airlines Flight 11, the plane that hit the north tower of the World Trade Centre 18 minutes earlier.

Graham's friend, Timothy Fristoe, 37, from Boston, was also due to travel with him, so the pair could visit friends in California's Palm Springs after the conference. But Fristoe was delayed by work, and can now only fondly remember his friend. 'Graham had a way with people,' he said. 'He had an uncanny ability to put them at ease and find something that disarmed them and endeared them to him. He was intensely charismatic and talented.'

The Berkeley family have been shaken twice by the attack. Their other son, Roger, a financial consultant in Saudi Arabia, has had to evacuate his home there and has not been heard of for a few days; he is presumed to be heading back to the UK. They hope to travel together to New York for a memorial service in a fortnight.

Last night the Foreign Office repeated Jack Straw's pledge to transport grieving relatives to the US so they can make arrangements for their loved ones.

Graham's mother Pauline remembers in her son a fiercely bright child promoted ahead of his years, both at primary school in Shrewsbury and at his first job at a software company in Slough. He excelled at the violin and viola, leading his orchestra when he was only 14, and attending the Royal College of Music in later years. He earned a directorship in his current job in half the time the company had expected.

'He had music in his soul,' Pauline said. 'I am not a pacifist like my son. I believe in an eye for an eye. Turning the other cheek will not stop these barbarians. Every mother who has lost a child will feel the same. I hope Bush is the man he says he is.'

For others, the news has not been so certain. Caroline Burbank's fiancé,Northampton-born Geoff Campbell, 31, a project director for Reuters, was due to attend a conference on the 106th floor of the north tower at 9am. Caroline remembers his rush to get out of the door.

'We were both supposed to be going,' said Burbank, 29, 'but he had to get there early for the first speaker. The stupid conference only lasted for a day. He was bouncing around our flat, trying to find his trousers. He succeeded, kissed the back of my hair, said "See you later" - and then he was gone.'

She has not heard from him since. The couple had already bought a diamond ring for a wedding later this year or early next. The conference Campbell was attending on the 106th floor, was held by Risk Waters, a financial publication, which is still unable to account for 16 members of staff, 10 of whom are British. Burbank thinks the venue was a good half-an-hour away from their apartment on West 12th Street in Chelsea. 'He left at 8.20am, possibly 8.25. It does not make sense in my head that he could have got there in time, by taxi or by metro. He was probably having a coffee on the lower floors,' she says.

'He keeps his wallet in his backpack,' she continues, insisting on the present tense. 'He's probably without any ID, in hospital. He is always hilarious, selfless and one of England's finest sons. Every day he made me laugh.'

Doubtless Neil Thompson was dealt that afternoon's most trenchant psychological blow. He was on the phone to his twin brother, Nigel Thompson, who was on the 105th floor of the north tower, when the first plane struck. The twins had both moved to New York from Sheffield to work in finance. They acted as brokers for financial commodities, often dealing to each other. They were in the middle of one of their usual tele phone deals on Tuesday morning, when Nigel cut the conversation short. 'We're under attack. We are evacuating now,' he managed to shout before the phone went dead. Neil worked a few minutes away in Greenwich, and was able to look out the window to see the devastation unfold.

'Basically we expect the worst,' said Mark, their brother, from the family home in Yorkshire. 'Their employers, Cantor Fitzgerald, have not released the names of any survivors from their five floors in the building. Neil is devastated. 'We hope to get out there on the 18th of September,' he said.

Since Tuesday night's revelations from Jack Straw that British casualties could be in the 'middle hundreds', the list of names of missing has become increasingly morbid. They are: Ron Gilligan, 43; Derek Sword, 29; Sarah Redheffer, 35; Howard Selwyn, 47; Glen Webber, 35; Neil Wright, 30; Keiran Gorman, 35; Christopher Newton-Carter; Richard Cudina, 46; Robert Eaton, 37; Michael Cunningham; Andrew Bailey, 29; Tyrone Davis, 23; Richard Dawson; Martin Wortley; Gavin Cushny, 47; brothers Andrew and Timothy Gilbert; Martin Coughlan, 53, from County Tipperary.

As time passes, internet noticeboards fill with British pleas for information on loved ones. A typical entry reads: 'am looking for Caz Carrington (step-brother) 105th Floor WTC. News from USA difficult. I am in UK'. One is posted for Vincent Wells, a 22-year-old Briton who worked on the 105th floor for Cantor Fitzgerald. '[He] was heard from immediately after the plane hit, but not since' it reads.

But as the dust settles, and the list of missing grows in detail and number, New York's exhausted hospitals still have more beds than patients.