The tenth anniversary of the Financial Crisis (or ’Great Recession’, as the Americans call it) is upon us.

While it would ridiculous to look back at the tenth anniversary of the 1991/92 or 1980/82 recession, it is appropriate to reflect in this case - this wasn’t the usual cyclical decennial recession.

Technically, it started with the closure of three BNP Paribas funds invested in sub-prime debt, resulting in a spike in interbank lending rates in August 2007.

But for most people in the UK it began when Northern Rock was forced to tap the Bank of England for money on September 14 2007, as other banks had stopped lending to it in the wholesale markets.

Robert Peston, the BBC journalist who turned out to have the best contacts throughout the crisis (he also flagged HBOS’s takeover by Lloyds), revealed the scoop.

No-one could have imagined that this would result in half of the Rock’s depositors turning up the following day to get their money out.

The queues went round the block in virtually every street in the UK - the first bank run in Britain in 140 years.

Threadneedle Street, we have a problem.

The Daily Telegraph recently had a photo gallery (should that be Rogues’ Gallery?) of the companies that sank as a result of the crisis. How were the Mighty Balance Sheets Fallen!

The list included once great names like Northern Rock, Bear Stearns (taken over by JP Morgan), Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch (taken over by Bank of America), Washington Mutual (taken over by JP Morgan), HBOS, Bradford & Bingley, and General Motors.

The Telegraph list also included Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, on the basis they were heavily bailed out by the taxpayer.

They could have named a few more: AIG, Fortis, Wachovia (taken over by Wells Fargo), Countrywide Financial (taken over by Bank of America), Hypovereinsbank, Anglo Irish, Allied Irish, Kaupthing (painful for us in the Isle of Man), and a swathe of other Icelandic and second line European banks that no-one has ever heard of, spring to mindâ?¦

The dominoes fell with a horrifying inevitability. John Authers, the FT columnist, described it as a ’train crash in slow motion’. First the sub-prime bonds, then the insurers of these, then the banks, then the real economy.

From a market participant’s perspective, it was at times extremely stressful, at times painful, occasionally exhilarating (if one got something right), always interesting.

Bank stocks went from being ’dull but reliable’ dividend payers into exciting and highly unreliable non-dividend payers.

Who can forget RBS crashing 30% on successive days in October 2008, or Lloyds dropping by 30% in early 2009 when the impairments on the HBOS book were announced, or the banking sector rallying some 25% after TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Programme) was approved in the US?

Memories of the period are vivid: US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on one knee before Nancy Pelosi to get the Democrats to agree to the $700bn TARP programme; the RBS rights issue (’Rights Said Fred’ was the Lex Column’s heading that day); Ken Lewis, Bank of America CEO, reportedly ’purple-faced’ with rage after Merrill Lynch’s senior executives had been awarded $3.6bn in bonuses just after Bank of America’s takeover of the bank; Warren Buffet and Anthony Bolton, the best known investors in the US and UK highlighting a buying opportunity in September 2008 (they were a bit early); the panic and fear of January and February 2009 as sentiment indicators plummeted.

Every bear market seems to expose gaps in the knowledge of investors (including professional investors). The Great Financial Crisis put the spotlight on the murky area of the credit creation process, and bank capital.

As an investment professional, one had to quickly mug up on ’TED spreads’ (the difference between Treasury Bills and interbank rates ), and the LIBOR-OIS spread (difference between the overnight bank interest rate and the 3 month rate), previously part of the arcane world of the bank analyst.

One had to learn about differences in bank capital (Tier 1, or CET1 - Core Equity Tier 1), subtle but sometimes crucial as to whether the investor got repaid; Risk Adjusted Capital Ratios; Basle II adjustments.

The world of bank bonds was a snake and scorpion infested jungle, with millions depending on the differences between level 1, Upper Level 2 and Lower Level 2 subordinated debt (the latter sounding like the lowest credit quality, but in fact the highest). Some ’senior’ bonds were more senior than others (viz Washington Mutual).

It was not an experience one wishes to repeat.

The opinions stated are those of the author and should not be taken as investment advice. Any recommendations may not be suitable for all, so please contact your financial adviser for further guidance. The value of investments can go down as well as up.