Memories of office life: on 9/11, we walked through a wormhole separating before from after

We rushed back from lunch to find the Guardian newsroom in a state of hushed pandemonium. I have never felt so humbled by the responsibility of finding words to shape an unimaginable event

It was an ordinary Tuesday at the office - and the day everything changed. We had breakfasted in a time of optimism, inside and outside the Guardian. The lustre was yet to fade from a Labour party that had recently been elected for a second term, while the internet was bringing the world to our doors.

I was the literary editor. Come lunchtime, a group of us headed out to celebrate a new partnership with the Hay festival, which the previous year had been declared the Woodstock of the mind" by Bill Clinton. It was all very jolly and perhaps a bit smug - part of a mission to seize the literary high ground.