7/7 second anniversary

Hardly seems like it's been two years since the London terror attacks. I remember that day very clearly.
The day before, I had taken a radio up to our son's school playground at 1pm so that they could hear the result of the Olympic bid.

It was a great feeling, knowing London had beaten the others. I was born here, have always lived here and will die here. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Yes, it's a shithole in some parts, a mad, crazy place at times but I love it.


Our son had gone to a taster day at his new senior school on July 7th. It was a warm, muggy, drizzly morning and he had to be there at 8.30 am so I dropped him there in the car and the old man was off work sick with a bad back so he spent the next hour or so having a bath and moaning about how much pain he was in.

I switched on the Jon Gaunt show on BBC London at 9am. Just a normal day with fat plonker Gaunty bellowing down the airwaves, then the first hint came that all was not well.
The travel report came on at around 9.20 and said there was a problem on the tube network with some sort of power surge.

We knew almost straight away that "it" had happened.

My mind went back to a few weeks before when we sat on the tube and the old fat plod said "They will do it one day, a suicide bomber will blow up a tube train and kill lots of people."

That morning, back in July 2005, we sat there and listened to the updated reports of other "power surges" and we just knew.

As the people started calling in with first hand accounts of people dead, and of seeing some very serious injuries before being led out of those tunnels it was clear to us, and probably to every other emergency worker in the capital that the terrorists had struck.

We live right near an overground section of the tube and there was nothing going past, it was clear that something serious had taken place.

Sky News started reporting a number of explosions at various locations, then the bus bomb report came in.

The rest if the day just went past in a blur of news reports, first hand accounts on the BBC London phone-ins and a realisation that, for many people, life would never be the same again.

I suppose the terrorists really did pick their moment. The day after the high of the Olympic success, the week of the G8 summit when every world leader would be in the UK.

Then, later in the evening, I was browsing the thread on the Urban75 forums when a regular poster called Badger Kitten appeared. She had been in the same carriage as the bomber on the King's Cross train. Her story is all on her blog. (see my link from Rachel From North London)

On that thread, people had been checking that other posters were accounted for, as many of them worked in London, and as it got later we just assumed that everyone was ok. Then Rachel appeared and gave her account of what had happened.