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Edouard d’Archinbaud, 24, from Paris, turned up for his first full day at work at Lehman Brothers but did not even reach his desk before he was told to go back home.

”Everybody is fired,” he said. “Lehman does not exist anymore. I’ll try to find another job in London in finance."

The trader, who would have been paid £45,000 a year, said that the worst affected were those with stock options. He said that 30% of stocks belonged to employees.

Times Archive, 1929: Wall-Street panic

A Niagara of liquidation fell upon the American Stock Exchange today

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”They’ve lost everything. If Lehman can face bankruptcy then every bank can face bankruptcy.

”A friend of mine who is working in Societe Generale told me a joke last week that Lehman’s employees were putting only £5 on their canteen cards at a time in case they wouldn’t be able to spend the money. It was a joke but now it is reality.”

Sphinx Patterson, 25, a fitness instructor who has worked in the bank’s gym for five years said that people are walking around the building in shock.

”I came in and I was told that the company is basically finished. There are girls crying, men hugging each other. People are getting drunk in the bar on the seventh floor drinking lager or a bit of red wine.”

He said that he had to turn away the women who turned up at his 12.15pm class. “Some of the girls told me that they don’t know if they are even going to get paid this week. It is like an avalanche effect. People are affected from the top downwards.

”I’ve just spoken to a lovely receptionist. She was shocked. She doesn’t know what to do. She was in tears and she was collecting her pens. The overall atmosphere is sadness.”

Kirsty McCluskey a 32-year-old trader looked visibly shocked as she left the building. Asked what the atmosphere was like she said: “Terrible, death, it was like a massive earthquake.”

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