THE Citizen this week can bring you a first hand local view of the day that changed American history.

Shaun Walsh from Bispham is vice-president of Relief for Food for the Hungry International (FHI) and has previously sent reports from the Gujurat earthquake and trips to India.

Shaun lives with his wife Denise and three children at Norfolk Avenue and has been in the United States since September 5 attending various meetings in Phoenix, Orlando, Washington and Newark. This is his account of the events of September 11, 2001...

OUR meeting in Phoenix started at a hotel where I and 20 other people representing ten different countries were staying. Our starting time was 8am on September 11.

You know when there are major events in the world people ask, "Where were you when XYZ happened"? Well I was in my room working on my computer at 7 am when I received a phone call.

It was from our media person in our Phoenix office. "Have you heard what is happening in New York?" she said. "Turn on your television".

I did and I could not move for 30 minutes. Surely not? This cannot be happening. This is like a Die Hard movie. I walked into a stunned hotel lobby where everyone was watching CNN broadcasting the live pictures from New York. News came in about a plane hitting the Pentagon. Then the Twin Towers collapsed.

A chef working at the hotel began to cry as she said a family member worked in one of the towers. The silence was deafening.

The CNN reporters could not figure out what was going on. Initially they thought the first plane hitting the first tower was a tragic accident. After the second hit it became painfully obvious to one and all that this was the beginning of a new kind of war.

Another report came in of a plane crashing to the ground in Pennsylvania. Planes where being redirected and grounded across all of America and Canada.

Our meeting began an hour late and we spent the first 30 minutes in prayer for the victims and comfort for the family and friends of the dead, of which we now know is creeping up to 7,000.

Throughout the day we kept going out to watch the news and a bit of history unfold. As I was supposed to be flying to Washington some of my friends and family members rang my wife Denise to ask if I was okay and where was I. I tried to call her but all day the phones were all busy and I could not get a line as the whole world was calling in to the USA.

A few days later President Bush gave his speech to the joint Senate and Congress houses in which he told the world that America "has no truer friend than Great Britain".

Since then as soon as I have spoken, my Northern accent giving me away, or worn a T-shirt that says England on it, people have come up to me just to shake my hand and say, "Thanks for standing with us".

I went to New York itself after and via a ferry ride in to Manhattan saw the smoke still rising from the debris and a huge gap in the skyline where the twin towers used to be. It was as if two front teeth had been violently and crudely ripped from someone's mouth.

I have been to New York before and this was a different New York. People genuinely seem less aggressive. You could still smell the smoke, road blocks were all around "ground zero", flags hanging from every building, flags hanging on many vehicle aerials, letters from school children across America placed all over the city saying they were sorry about what happened.

We were in New York to meet three organisations assisting the victims of the attacks. They all said that there was so much money coming in for the victims, literally billions, that they did not know what to do with the funds.

In the meantime 7.5 million innocent victims in Afghanistan are in desperate need of food aid just to survive the next six months. The September 11 Fund, where US singers and actors performed, raised more than $500 million. Only half of that is needed to keep seven million people alive. The Afghans are also victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

FHI is actively moving forward to assist the people of Afghanistan who, through the presence of Bin Laden and his network and the ruling extremist Taliban, find themselves also victims of terrorism and oppression.

The best case scenario for the above is that thousands are going to die of hunger. The worse case scenario is that hundreds of thousands of people will die.

On behalf of my agency I am leading our response to the crisis in Central Asia and cold hard cash donations are most welcome.

Please make cheques payable to Food for the Hungry UK, and send to Food For The Hungry UK, 44 Copperfield Road, Bassett, Southampton SO16 3NX. Phone (0238) 090 2327 or email uk@fhi.net