The widow and the boy without a dad

London: Saturday September 8 2001 found Simon and Elizabeth Turner in John Lewis trying to decide whether, in addition to the bottles, the bedding and the baby monitors, their imminent first child really needed a complete Winnie the Pooh dining set.

"They do that two-hour window with somebody who explains all the equipment to the numpties who have no idea what they're letting themselves in for," says Elizabeth. "It's quite a scary experience."

Three days later, her thoughts had shifted from infant tableware to transport. By then, Simon, a 39-year-old financial publisher, was at his hotel in New York, preparing for a conference and trying to reassure his wife over the phone.

"I was freaking out about a buggy that I was trying to get hold of and couldn't and being completely irrational, and he was like, ‘We'll sort it when we get back. The baby will have a buggy. There's lots of buggies in the world and it will have one, so don't worry about it.'"

Shortly after the call, Simon went for his conference, which was at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Elizabeth, who was at the offices of Channel 4, where she worked in human resources, went for lunch with her colleague Jane before the monthly staff meeting.

When they came back, the channel's many TVs were all showing the same image: a plume of smoke from the north tower.

"As we were stood watching and listening to all the commentary, we saw the little black dot come across the screen and watched live as the second plane hit the trade centre," says Elizabeth. "That was when everybody knew. Jane and I both said immediately that it was a terrorist attack."

Simon's phone went straight to voicemail and there was no answer at the New York office of his company, Risk Waters.

Two months later, William Simon Turner was born. She would have been happy with a baby of either sex, but a boy seemed fitting as William was the only name she and Simon had come up with.

William will be 10 in November and, considering what has happened, says Elizabeth. "He's a very happy, well-adjusted normal lad who's taken on an awful lot of information and dealt with it really well."

The same could be said of her. In the aftermath of Simon's death, Elizabeth, now 43, has retrained as a life coach and written a book, The Blue Skies of Autumn, about what happened and how she dealt with it. If writing it was therapeutic, it was also practical: proceeds are going to the Red Cross to thank the organisation for providing a "life-saving" maternity nurse to help her through her early days as a single parent.

In March this year, the family went to New York so that William could see for himself the city his father loved so much, and where he died.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd