It was when we saw the queues of anxious savers outside Northern Rock branches that the credit crunch moved from the trading floors of Wall Street into our living rooms and high streets.
Pensioners and families were worrying for the first time that they might lose their life savings. Suddenly, everyone was following the latest financial news from America and here in Britain.
And then, one year ago today, the government took decisive action to take Northern Rock into public ownership.
For those of us who didn’t have savings in Northern Rock, there was a temptation to think that the crisis in that bank had nothing to do with us. But if the government hadn’t acted, it could have triggered a domino effect for every saver and every mortgage holder in the country.
Because of that bold decision, not a single UK saver lost a single penny in any UK bank.
It could all have ended very differently for pensioners and other savers – thousands could have lost years’ worth of deposits or still be tied up in lengthy and stressful legal action to get their money back.
That might sound unthinkable now, but doing nothing was an option.
The Conservatives’ answer to the financial crisis was to stand back and let the bank collapse.
This would have had devastating consequences for the ordinary customers of Northern Rock.
We would be reading newspaper stories every day about elderly pensioners struggling to cope without access to their savings.
David Cameron has generated easy headlines with warm words for savers – the innocent victims of the credit crunch. But let’s be clear, you can’t say you care about savers if you’re prepared to let banks like Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley go bust.
I don’t think anyone expected that one day we would be forced to take a bank into public ownership. But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
And I am proud as Pensions Minister to be able to say that, because the Labour government acted, no pensioner lost a solitary penny.
That’s not to say things aren’t still tough. We know that people who are facing record low interest rates are worried about their savings.
I know pensioners in particular need help and we are determined to give older people more cash to ease the worries they have about bills.
The Pre-Budget Report last year announced significant help for pensioners – including the biggest increase in the State Pension since 2001 and a one-off £60 bonus, which is being paid automatically to every pensioner this winter.
But the most important thing that we have had to do to help pensioners was stop the banks that held their deposits going under.
Thousands of people who’d played by the rules and put aside something for a rainy day would have been punished and we can only guess how many more people, saving with other banks, would have felt the consequences.
A year on, there will still be those like the Tory leader who carp from the sidelines. But we will continue to do everything it takes to protect people’s hard earned savings.