Everybody said the same thing. They couldn't stop remembering what had happened in Omagh at exactly the same time two years ago.
The injured, the bereaved, the journalists, those who had arrived at the scene just after the bomb exploded. They all recalled the awful sequence of events. It would have been impossible to forget.
At 2.30 p.m., as shops and businesses closed for the commemoration service, Omagh remembered that this was the time the telephone warning came about the bomb.
"It still breaks my heart to think of all those people walking innocently through the streets, doing their shopping, not knowing what would happen," said a woman leaving a newsagent's.
Two years ago the crowds had unwittingly moved to the very spot where the car-bomb was left. Yesterday, they walked to the Garden of Remembrance instead. It started to rain lightly. "That's good," said a man. "It wouldn't be right if the sun was shining."
At 3 p.m., the bells of all the churches in Omagh rang out in unison. At 3.10 p.m. they fell silent. It was then that ordinary life in the town was blown asunder.
For a minute, you couldn't hear a sound as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters paused to remember their loved ones. There were no wildly emotional scenes. No hysterics. Just a few quiet tears.
Kevin Skelton was there. His wife Philomena (49) was buying her children's school uniforms that day. "We were only three feet apart," said Kevin. "Yet she was killed and I wasn't. She gave me 20 years of happiness and four wonderful kids." Stanley McCombe was present too. His wife Anne (49) was killed as she worked in Watterson's clothes shop. "She wasn't just my wife, she was my best friend as well," he said.
Donna-Marie Keys, who has undergone plastic surgery for very serious facial wounds, was at the service with her husband. So were the Dohertys from Buncrana. Their son Oran (8) was visiting the town when the bomb exploded.
All the political parties were represented at the ceremony, but it wasn't a day for the politicians. A folk group sang The Lord is My Shepherd. Wreaths were laid in memory of the victims.
DUP councillor Mr Oliver Gibson, whose niece Esther (36) was killed, said the bereaved still needed "time and space" to grieve. They had to think to the future too, "although we will never, ever forget the past".
Michael Gallagher's son Adrian (21) was killed as he bought new boots and a pair of jeans. "It has been a very difficult day," Mr Gallagher said.
"We have been constantly looking at our watches to see the minutes ticking away. It has been dreadful but not as dreadful as the day two years ago. Nothing could be worse than that."