Sombre service for British victims at US embassy

About 30 families who lost loved ones in the atrocities attended the sombre remembrance service at the September 11 memorial garden next to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Other guests at the moving ceremony included the Duchess of Cornwall, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Labour leader Ed Miliband, US ambassador to the UK Louis Susman, Dame Judi Dench and London mayor Boris Johnson.

In what has become a poignant tradition on every anniversary, the bereaved relatives read out the names of the 67 British victims of the attacks and laid a white rose for each of them.

The memorial garden, which was opened by the Princess Royal in 2003, contains a small pavilion bearing three bronze plaques which list the names of victims from the UK, UK Overseas Territories and those with dual nationalities.

There is also a memorial stone bearing American author Henry Van Dyke’s poem For Katrina’s Sun-Dial, beginning “Time is too slow for those who wait”, which was read at the first memorial service for those killed in 9/11 at Westminster Abbey in November 2001.

A small group of radical Muslims staged a protest nearby, in which they burned a US flag and chanted slogans. Another group of Muslims retaliated by protesting against extremism.

Earlier some families attended a special service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The ceremony featured a newly-commissioned anthem based on a message the Queen sent to a memorial service held in New York for British victims nine days after the attacks.

The song, arranged to music by American composer Nico Muhly, is based around the monarch’s words, “Grief is the price we pay for love,” and also includes quotations from psalms.

The Dean of St Paul’s, the Rt Rev Graeme Paul Knowles, said a prayer for the victims of the 9/11 attacks and their loved ones at the service.

“We gather in this cathedral today to remember before God all who died in the atrocities in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania 10 years ago and to pray with those whose lives were changed forever that day,” he said.

“We also remember those innocent people who, in our lifetime, have had their lives taken from them through acts of terrorism in the cities of our world.”

The Britons killed in the suicide attacks included bankers, brokers, journalists and computer experts who had gone to work as usual on an apparently unexceptional bright late summer’s day 10 years ago.