Six years of bereavement counseling stood one volunteer in good stead when it came to the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, as Nick Morrison discovers.

WHILE the world struggled to shake off its stunned disbelief, Alan had no hesitation in answering the call for help. But he knew that this was a situation unlike any he had ever encountered before, and that all his training and experience would be severely tested.

He was attending Cruse Bereavement Care's annual conference in London, just a few days after two passenger jets crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York, when the organisation's acting chief executive was summoned from the platform, to reappear a few minutes later.

"He came back and said: 'I have just had a phone call from the Home Office asking if we could send a team out to New York tomorrow.' He just asked if there was anybody would consider putting their name down. I couldn't go straight away, but I said I would go later," says Alan, 55, a volunteer with Cruse's Tees Valley branch for the last seven years.

"It was an immediate response. Later, I thought 'What will my wife say?' It was a pretty daunting prospect but I thought I could be of some use. I had been running a course the evening after it happened, and we had just talked about what happened, so I had already worked out a lot of feelings and thoughts about it."

Cruse, the UK's only national charity working with people who have been bereaved, sent out a team of volunteers on the Monday following the tragedy, and another team the following week, working alongside British police officers to help UK relatives of victims. The third week, Alan was asked to fly to New York, this time as the charity's sole representative, instead of being part of a team.

As well as his work with the families of victims, Alan also provided an outlet for the police family liaison officers, where they could let off steam and off-load their own stresses from dealing with the bereaved. And he grins with pride as he recalls the nickname he earned in New York. "The police used to call me 'the pink and fluffy one'," he says.

But he knew his role with the bereaved would be not so much counselling, as just helping them cope with the practicalities. The mourning process is broken down into four stages: numbness; yearning; disorganisation and despair, and reorganised behavour, although Alan sums it up more pithily as reeling, feeling, dealing and healing.

"I knew that going out at that time people would be in the reeling phase and a lot of their feelings would be confused, so you would not be doing any counselling work. It would be purely support," he says.

"One particular family were out of their depth in a big city and it was a swanky hotel and they couldn't get the air conditioning to work properly and they couldn't get the temperature right for their baths, so I went over and did it for them.

"And the woman in that particular family was afraid of heights and they were on the 27th floor and she was afraid to use the lifts. So I worked out some techniques with her so she would be happy in their room and she could get in the lift. Even though you are there for the bereavement work, it is about the practicalities of getting through the day."

Another day was spent at the reception centre set up for the bereaved at Pier 94 with the family of a victim - his wife, two daughters and son, his brother-in-law and his wife, and their son.

"Each member of the family had things they wanted to do, but during that particular day each member of the family spent time with me on their own. They just wanted to off-load, to talk to somebody who was not immediate to them.

"What I found was what I expected: that nobody talked about dead people. Everywhere you went in the city there were posters saying 'so-and-so is missing' or 'this person is lost'. There was never any mention of 'so-and-so was killed in the Twin Towers'.

"It was as though the city hadn't accepted the deaths, it was as if the city expected them to be found. But once you saw Ground Zero you knew nobody was going to be found."

When the mother of another victim decided she could not face the trip to Ground Zero, Alan stayed with her at the reception centre, helping to pick out her son's photograph on a wall containing more than 3,000 pictures, where she left a message and flowers.

He says, in many ways, the deaths in the World Trade Centre were no different to any other deaths. "I consider all death to be traumatic. I know this had a lot of publicity, but everybody involved had their own story," he says.

But counsellors also need somewhere to off-load. Throughout his time in New York - which was extended to two weeks and then another week when he returned for the memorial service - Alan kept in touch with a former Cruse volunteer from Middlesbrough, now living in New Jersey. And on his return he had his own counselling sessions and sessions with his Cruse supervisor. He also wrote his thoughts and feelings up in a journal every night.

"Sometimes you don't realise what is going on in your head until you see it written down," he says. "I don't have flashbacks now, although I did for quite a while.

"The flashbacks weren't traumatic, it was just a feeling that I was still in New York. Nothing specific, but New York felt in your head. When I first came back I couldn't get it out of my head, it was pretty much a constant, but it has faded away. It has not affected my approach, the way I work, but it has given me an experience. I think it was a privilege to be asked to go and I see it as a recognition of the work Cruse does."

Anne Viney, Cruse executive director, says she is proud of the role played by their volunteers in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy.

"It was a magnificent response to a challenge in very extraordinary circumstances. It has highlighted the fact that we know a lot about bereavement, but also what we know is that every circumstance is individual," she says.

"At that stage it was not about counselling, it was about being with people, listening to their preoccupations, making sure they get information, liaising with the authorities on their behalf and just being there and listening.

"And we can learn lessons from New York about the deaths that we face every day. The deaths that happen at home or on the road are just as important, and the skills and training that we have are just as applicable in these everyday situations as in that extraordinary situation."

* Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer for Cruse can contact the Tees Valley branch on (01325) 252777

Anyone affected by bereavement can contact the Tees Valley helpline on (01325) 355554 or the national helpline on 0870 1671677