Christmas will be different for Louise Demaine this year. It isn't because she will be in New York. She has lived there for 15 years. Nor is it because she is working. She never works on Christmas day.

This year, for the first time, she will spend December 25 away from her family in Darwen. It is a choice she made after the events of September 11. And it isn't because she is too scared to board an aircraft.

"I've flown since September 11 and that doesn't bother me. I just want to be here on December 25.

"Christmas is the one time of the year I really want to be back in Darwen with my family and friends. But New York is a much closer place now and I think important I spend Christmas here. This is where I live. It's a solidarity thing."

Louise isn't alone. Her flatmate, a nanny from Oswaldtwistle, and her four colleagues from East Lancashire, are doing the same.

Louise works in A Salt and Battery, New York's only English Fish and Chip shop, in Greenwich Village. Its location is near St Vincent's Hospital, the medical centre where rescue workers took the injured from the wreckage of World Trade Centre towers.

It is an event she believes transformed New York forever. "It is a day I will never forget. At first, I didn't believe it but then it gradually began to sink in.

"I thought of people we knew who worked in the World Trade Centre. We used to deliver to them regularly and didn't know if they were safe or not."

Since the opening of A Salt and Battery, the chippy has become a popular provider of meals for workers in some of the biggest office blocks in Manhattan.

At the neighbouring tea shop, run by the same people, orders are regularly received from businessmen wanting shepherd's pie while they take a break from making money-spinning deals. On September 12, Nicky Perry, the owner of the two shops, walked into the chip shop with a man from the firm which regularly orders fish and chips to the World Trade Centre. They had all escaped. At the same time, though, they discovered another of their regulars, policeman James Leahy, had died in the disaster.

"I cried for days," added Louise. "There just wasn't any sense to it. People were dashing around all over the place, putting up posters, trying to find news of their relatives."

Louise works in the fish and chip shop with Mick Baldwin, who arrived in New York 18 months ago with his girlfriend Lou Goulding, who works in the tea shop called Tea and Sympathy.

Mick said: "We put up posters in here for people and it was a case of doing what we could." They rattled up fish and chips for the rescue workers who often worked 12 hours at a time without a break, trawling through the rubbish, piece by piece, in the hope of finding someone, somewhere, still alive.

None has visited the stricken site, though Mick's apartment is near to it. However, the effects of September 11 are still being felt.

Mick said: "Everyone is much closer than before. It is only in the last couple of weeks that the smoke has cleared from here, and we are a distance from the site.

"Things seem different, much more calm. The district from here to the World Trade Centre used to be alive at night, with its pubs and bars packed. No-one goes down there now. People are experiencing things they never thought they would.

"In a strange way, it is a nicer place to live because people pay more attention to each other. Had the towers toppled over instead of collapsing on themselves, my apartment would have been hit. Everyone has a story like that to tell and that has made the difference."

His girlfriend Lou, who lived in Oswaldtwistle and Accrington, said: "People used to live around the clock here, burning the candle at both ends. That doesn't happen any more."

Alongside Lou in the teashop are Claire Prescott and Matt Arnfield, who experienced the 'old' New York for two months before September 11. The couple, from Blackburn, have seen massive changes. They too, will be in the Big Apple at Christmas.

Claire said: "Trends have changed. A lot of people won't shop beyond 14th street now. They can spend their money further down, near the businesses which have been affected the most."

Louise added: "I think everyone will be a bit down over Christmas. That is why I am staying put." Tomorrow DAVID HIGGERSON continues his report from the stricken city of New York