LONDON ATTACK – Part 1; my personal story
I normally work in Highbury Islington that is one tube stop removed from Kings Cross station on the Victoria Line, which means I go through Kings Cross at least twice a day. Because my job has flexi-time I usually start work at 10am, which means I normally avoid the worst of the morning rush hour. If this had been a normal working day for me I would have passed through Kings Cross at 9.40am this morning, 50 minutes after the bomb at Kings Cross went off. Today was different though as I was due in Covent Garden to host a PR event for MP’s and a minor 'it' girl. I arrived at Victoria station expecting there to be difficulties with transport after hearing news warnings over breakfast that there were going to be ongoing problems with most lines in the tube this morning. The first train was slow in arriving and was too packed to take more than a handful of passengers on the platform and then when the second train arrived it crawled to Victoria station and was almost as packed as the first train. I joked with a couple of other passengers that it was typical British irony for the transport system to go all to hell the day after London wins the Olympics on the back of a favourable impression of improvements in the transport system.
When I arrived at Victoria station, the passengers were greeted with the news that the entire tube system was out of action which most of the passengers around put down to yet further inefficiency and underperformance on the part of Metronet which had recently been bollixed by Transport for London for being way behind schedule for upgrading networks and lines. In fact when the first reports came through after the bombings they were reporting that Metronet had apparently conceded that an electricity fault had caused the explosion at Kings Cross. This was later retracted and the first reports that a terrorist attack may have taken place started to filter through. By then at 9.45am I was on a red bus to Trafalgar Square which would be the closest destination to Covent Garden. Ten minutes later the driver suddenly announced that he had received the order that no buses were to go through Central London and he would have to drop us off at the edge of Zone 1. He said he didn’t know why the order had come though but it must mean something big was going down.
After disembarking from the bus and five minutes walk in the direction of Trafalgar Square I was in Parliament Square where there were more cops, and more machine guns than I have seen anywhere else in my life. I knew then that something had very definitely gone wrong. It was then that I first tried to ring my mobile and discovered that the London mobile network was down. As I found a red telephone box close to Downing Street a never-ending wave of ambulance, police cars and fire engines poured in the direction of Trafalgar Square. At that point I discovered that bombs had apparently gone off in Central London and that the tube and the buses were going to be shut down for the foreseeable future. After contacting the nearest and dearest I walked to Trafalgar Square and found an Internet café where I was able to reassure everybody that I was all right as well as find out what on earth was going on. I was told by work to either stay where I was or go home if possible.
I decided that I would go to the pub and then walk down to the parks and take it easy until the rail stations reopened and the mobile network restored. However when I went over the road to the pub I inadvertently caused a bomb scare in a sign of how, despite the outward calm, everybody’s nerves were shredded. I was carrying a heavy white bag in addition to my backpack that was full of gift packs containing cosmetics for the media event that I placed it down next to a stool and went to the bar to order a drink in a pub that was packed full of people. Because there were probably ten times more people than normal there for that time of day the couple of bar staff that were there were unable to cope with demand and I waited a full ten minutes waiting to be served with no luck. In the meantime a lady comes charging through the crowd to say that there was an unattended bag by the entrance and the barman goes over to have a look. Immediately he pulls the alarm and everybody hurriedly leaves the bar. I go to pick up my white bag on the way out and can’t see it but I know I don’t have the time to look for it so exit like everybody else. It isn’t until I get across to the other side of the street that I consider that the mysterious bag might be mine. In the meantime cops descend from everywhere and within a minute they are over the bag. Peering across the road I can make out that the bag in question is indeed mine which means it must have been moved by someone looking for more space. I go back over the road and politely let the nearest policeman know. He is pretty good about it thanking me for coming back promptly though the barmen who set off the alarm is clearly unimpressed. When the cop asks me what is in the bag, I tell him that if they had had to explode my bag they would have had nice smelling policeman for miles around (because of all of the cosmetics). Thankfully he still managed to retrain a sense of humour despite the situation and cracked a small smile.
After that incident I decided that since I couldn’t go anywhere other than by foot or ring anyone, I might as well head to the parks and wait the situation out. So I walked past Trafalgar square and onto Hyde Park and then Green Park. The atmosphere was surreal, everyone was talking quietly and calmly, clearly shock had set in and everyone, including myself was pretty numb at that stage. I noticed a lot of American accents amongst the people passing me and I wondered how many of them were New Yorkers and what sense of déjà vu they might be feeling and what they made of the reaction of Londoners compared to that of New Yorkers. For me it was one of the most surreal days of my life and it was amazing what I was already beginning to accept as normal (such as an unending line of office workers in the middle of the day walking as far as the eye could see). I have never see Londerners as quiet, as considerate, and as blank as I saw them on Thursday. It was like being in the front parlour room while a preist quietly adminsters the last rites on a dying relative in the next room.
At Green Park tube station they announced that half of London’s rail stations were reopening with a reduced outward-bound rail service though the tube was to remain shut. This included Victoria so I walked to Victoria station and then climbed onto a tightly packed train that after numerous stutters and starts finally wended its way to Clapham Junction. The police presence at Clapham Junction, Britain’s busiest rail station was extraordinary, which did nothing to alleviate the fear that it is a prime target for future attacks after successfully hitting Kings Cross, London’s busiest tube station. I decided to walk home from Clapham Junction, as I couldn’t quite face taking a bus then if I just didn’t have too.
It is going to take a while for things to return back to normality, I am determined to return back to the tubes, trains and buses tomorrow to show that life for us will still go on. But I am mindful that (a) I will be passing through Kings Cross on the Victoria Line to get to work and (b) that the tactic for Al Queda since 9/11 has been to make a second attempt after the initial bombings a few days later. It happened successfully in Turkey against British interests and it happened in Madrid where the second attempt was successfully foiled. I think they will try again and then they may turn their attention to Rome. I don’t think they will attack tomorrow but from the middle of next week stepping on those tubes, trains and buses is for me going to present a little battle of mind, spirit and will over shivering flesh. Especially once those tubes leave the platform and enter the very long tunnel between Kings Cross station and Highbury Islington.
When I arrived at Victoria station, the passengers were greeted with the news that the entire tube system was out of action which most of the passengers around put down to yet further inefficiency and underperformance on the part of Metronet which had recently been bollixed by Transport for London for being way behind schedule for upgrading networks and lines. In fact when the first reports came through after the bombings they were reporting that Metronet had apparently conceded that an electricity fault had caused the explosion at Kings Cross. This was later retracted and the first reports that a terrorist attack may have taken place started to filter through. By then at 9.45am I was on a red bus to Trafalgar Square which would be the closest destination to Covent Garden. Ten minutes later the driver suddenly announced that he had received the order that no buses were to go through Central London and he would have to drop us off at the edge of Zone 1. He said he didn’t know why the order had come though but it must mean something big was going down.
After disembarking from the bus and five minutes walk in the direction of Trafalgar Square I was in Parliament Square where there were more cops, and more machine guns than I have seen anywhere else in my life. I knew then that something had very definitely gone wrong. It was then that I first tried to ring my mobile and discovered that the London mobile network was down. As I found a red telephone box close to Downing Street a never-ending wave of ambulance, police cars and fire engines poured in the direction of Trafalgar Square. At that point I discovered that bombs had apparently gone off in Central London and that the tube and the buses were going to be shut down for the foreseeable future. After contacting the nearest and dearest I walked to Trafalgar Square and found an Internet café where I was able to reassure everybody that I was all right as well as find out what on earth was going on. I was told by work to either stay where I was or go home if possible.
I decided that I would go to the pub and then walk down to the parks and take it easy until the rail stations reopened and the mobile network restored. However when I went over the road to the pub I inadvertently caused a bomb scare in a sign of how, despite the outward calm, everybody’s nerves were shredded. I was carrying a heavy white bag in addition to my backpack that was full of gift packs containing cosmetics for the media event that I placed it down next to a stool and went to the bar to order a drink in a pub that was packed full of people. Because there were probably ten times more people than normal there for that time of day the couple of bar staff that were there were unable to cope with demand and I waited a full ten minutes waiting to be served with no luck. In the meantime a lady comes charging through the crowd to say that there was an unattended bag by the entrance and the barman goes over to have a look. Immediately he pulls the alarm and everybody hurriedly leaves the bar. I go to pick up my white bag on the way out and can’t see it but I know I don’t have the time to look for it so exit like everybody else. It isn’t until I get across to the other side of the street that I consider that the mysterious bag might be mine. In the meantime cops descend from everywhere and within a minute they are over the bag. Peering across the road I can make out that the bag in question is indeed mine which means it must have been moved by someone looking for more space. I go back over the road and politely let the nearest policeman know. He is pretty good about it thanking me for coming back promptly though the barmen who set off the alarm is clearly unimpressed. When the cop asks me what is in the bag, I tell him that if they had had to explode my bag they would have had nice smelling policeman for miles around (because of all of the cosmetics). Thankfully he still managed to retrain a sense of humour despite the situation and cracked a small smile.
After that incident I decided that since I couldn’t go anywhere other than by foot or ring anyone, I might as well head to the parks and wait the situation out. So I walked past Trafalgar square and onto Hyde Park and then Green Park. The atmosphere was surreal, everyone was talking quietly and calmly, clearly shock had set in and everyone, including myself was pretty numb at that stage. I noticed a lot of American accents amongst the people passing me and I wondered how many of them were New Yorkers and what sense of déjà vu they might be feeling and what they made of the reaction of Londoners compared to that of New Yorkers. For me it was one of the most surreal days of my life and it was amazing what I was already beginning to accept as normal (such as an unending line of office workers in the middle of the day walking as far as the eye could see). I have never see Londerners as quiet, as considerate, and as blank as I saw them on Thursday. It was like being in the front parlour room while a preist quietly adminsters the last rites on a dying relative in the next room.
At Green Park tube station they announced that half of London’s rail stations were reopening with a reduced outward-bound rail service though the tube was to remain shut. This included Victoria so I walked to Victoria station and then climbed onto a tightly packed train that after numerous stutters and starts finally wended its way to Clapham Junction. The police presence at Clapham Junction, Britain’s busiest rail station was extraordinary, which did nothing to alleviate the fear that it is a prime target for future attacks after successfully hitting Kings Cross, London’s busiest tube station. I decided to walk home from Clapham Junction, as I couldn’t quite face taking a bus then if I just didn’t have too.
It is going to take a while for things to return back to normality, I am determined to return back to the tubes, trains and buses tomorrow to show that life for us will still go on. But I am mindful that (a) I will be passing through Kings Cross on the Victoria Line to get to work and (b) that the tactic for Al Queda since 9/11 has been to make a second attempt after the initial bombings a few days later. It happened successfully in Turkey against British interests and it happened in Madrid where the second attempt was successfully foiled. I think they will try again and then they may turn their attention to Rome. I don’t think they will attack tomorrow but from the middle of next week stepping on those tubes, trains and buses is for me going to present a little battle of mind, spirit and will over shivering flesh. Especially once those tubes leave the platform and enter the very long tunnel between Kings Cross station and Highbury Islington.
posted by Anthony Burn at 3:19 pm
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