Remembering September 11

Former US president George Bush today joined the Queen and the Prime Minister at a service in Westminster Abbey to remember the British victims of the World Trade Center attack.

Mr Bush - president during the Gulf War with Iraq 10 years ago - was asked by his son, President George W Bush, to represent the American people at the service, attended by 800 friends and family of the Britons who died in New York on 11 September.

About 80 Britons perished in the attacks on the twin towers alongside almost 4,000 other victims. Although the number of Britons killed is far lower than was originally thought and the exact figure remains elusive, Britain is one of the day's biggest victims after the US.

Also among the 1,200-strong congregation were the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, US ambassador William Farish and senior Cabinet ministers including Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens was among the first of the high-profile guests to arrive, followed soon after by Mr Bush senior.

Both the British and US national anthems were played at the start of the service, during which Dame Judi Dench read two poems, Christina Rossetti's Remember and an American poem, Time Is, by Henry van Dyke.

Representatives from US emergency services and firms including Cantor Fitzgerald and Risk Waters, which lost many staff, were also in the congregation.

Mr Blair read one of the lessons and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, delivered the sermon. Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was reading his new poem dedicated to the victims.

In his sermon the Archbishop rebuked those who justified the attacks in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, in which an estimated 400 died, in the name of Islam. "Nothing and no cause can justify its barbarity," he said.

The service began with the Union flag and Stars and Stripes carried, side by side, into the Abbey. The American flag was carried by Amy Monroe, a US Fire Department paramedic who was freed from the World Trade Center ruin.

The Queen was due to pay her personal respects by laying a posy on the Abbey's Memorial to Innocent Victims, and was later meeting some of the bereaved families who helped design the service.

Andrew Motion's tribute to Brits