9/11: The Firemen's Story

Channel 4, 9pm

For what it’s worth, my own 9/11 memory is of returning from the hospital after a pre-natal scan (daughter number two being a month-and-a-half away from making her entrance), turning on the Steve Wright Show on Radio 2 and hearing some passing reference to a plane hitting the Twin Towers. I presumed at the time it was a tiny private jet and I went back to listening to the Jerry Seinfeld tape on the audio system.

There are going to be a lot of memories of that day dragged up over the next week or two. It’s the nature of anniversaries, of course, and 9/11 was one of those historical pivot points – though as time has passed it’s clear that the pivot is not so much in the West but in the Arab world, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before too long someone will draw a line between the Arab Spring and 9/11.

But with the tenth anniversary of the event almost on us the horror and heroism of that day is worth recalling. And there was heroism. One in 10 of the casualties – 343 – on that New York morning were firemen. Men who had rushed out of their fire stations and rushed into the towers not knowing that the buildings would fall on top of them. Bill Spades, one of the men interviewed in tonight’s documentary, was the only one of a dozen men in his unit to survive.

This isn’t a hagiography. There are hints that the traditional rivalry between the New York fire service and the city’s police force may have contributed in some small way to the death toll. But it’s also a reminder of how men risked their lives to save others that day. And how some paid the price for doing so.

JLC: Living Las Vegas

Channel 5, 10pm

In London recently I walked past the Shaftesbury Theatre and had to stop to take in the awful majesty of the upcoming show, Rock Of Ages. On the billboard was a giant picture of Shayne Ward and Justin Lee Collins in poodle rock wigs looking as comfortable as Rupert Murdoch in front of a parliamentary hearing. It just shows you don’t need any talent to carve out a career in showbiz. And I’m talking about JLC here. Tonight, the big-bearded West Country man goes to Las Vegas where he goes on stage with a group of male strippers. Lovely.

Natural World: The Woman Who Swims With Killer Whales

BBC 2, 8pm

That’ll be New Zealand marine biologist Dr Ingrid Visser who’s keen to find out why an unusually high number of killer whales have died in the past year. Her findings reveal disturbing information about the health of the world’s oceans.