The day that London stood still – Mummascribbles

As I ran as fast as I could for the train that was about to close its doors, I had no idea that this little run which left me so out of breath, would be the difference between me making it to work safely and me being caught up in utter chaos. The only reason I ran was because the next train wasn’t for another 17 minutes and I couldn’t be bothered to wait around on the platform for that long. I am so thankful to this day that I ran.

I made it to work, settled down at my desk, turned on my computer, and as always, loaded up the sky news website to see the latest stories. I mean, Facebook and Twitter weren’t even around back then, the news was where it was at! Breaking news was happening. Reports of a power surge on the London Underground. Blimey, I thought, that was lucky, I’d only just got off it.

Having been the ‘news reporter’ of the office, I kept an eye on the story – I’d never seen anything like it happen and as all of my colleagues were fellow commuters, everyone was interested. In between doing bits of work, I kept checking the website. Slowly but surely the information started to change. Suddenly what everyone thought was a power surge was reported bombings. Slowly but surely the news of a huge terrorist attack was being broken to the world.

Chills went down my spine. I thought of the journey that I’d completed just moments before. The timings of the bombs were as I’d have been leaving my tube station. I wouldn’t have been caught up in the carnage, just the chaos of London, with the entire tube network down. The thought of that was terrifying – thank gawd I ran for that train.

Then the next news broke. The bastards (and yes I know I don’t normally swear in my posts but there’s no other word for them), had bombed a double decker bus. Some of the people who thought they’d been safely released from the underground, went on to complete their journey on the bus and the bastards bombed that too.

At that point, sheer terror was running through the office. Everyone had stopped working. Everyone had Sky news on up their screens. There was this deafening silence of disbelief. And suddenly, everyone started trying to ring their loved ones. Those who had commuters in the family. Those who had family safe at home who were no doubt seeing the news unravel. Of course the mobile phone networks were jammed. We couldn’t make phone calls. I had to send a text to my mum which was along the lines of “I’m ok mum, please don’t worry about me, I’m safely in my office” and then a mass text that simply said, “if you’ve seen the news, I’m fine, if you haven’t seen the news, turn it on”.

Horror was unfolding in London. Tube bombings, bus bombings. People fleeing to hopeful safety on the streets. People with nowhere to go. People in their offices stuck. All anybody wanted to do from that moment onwards, was to get home. But it was impossible.

Photos started coming out of the injured. Of bleeding men and women on the streets. Of absolute chaos in our home City. I am so thankful that I ran for that train.

In my office, work had simply stopped. We’d been told to stay put. There was nowhere to go. We didn’t know when we’d be allowed to leave. We didn’t know when we’d get home. For all we knew at that point, we were sleeping there. But you know what, it didn’t matter – because we were alive.

As the day went on, more photos and horror stories were coming out. The sheer scale of what had happened was being revealed. There was absolutely no chance that any of the transport network was going to be opened. We had to find a way to get home.

I’ll always remember that typically on that day, there were no senior management in the building. One of the poor assistant directors had to deal with the whole thing. I felt so sorry for him.

It came to the point in the day where it was deemed safe to leave the building. It was time to find a way home.

We’d been told that we could all get cabs that the company would pay for but that we had to leave with at least one other person. We had to travel together. So we left. And we walked. That’s all we could do. We and hundreds if not thousands of other Londoners walked. It was such an eerie feeling. The quietest and busiest I have ever seen the streets.  We walked until we found a cab. I think it was about 45 minutes before we reached a road where suddenly a cab pulled over to let some people out. We grabbed it. “Home please, take us home”, we said. The colleague I was with lived not too far from me. So that we stayed together the whole journey, we headed back to her town and I’d arranged for my dad to pick me up and take me home. Of course the traffic everywhere wasn’t great so it took dad a while to get to me but when I saw his car pull into the car park of the shopping centre we’d stopped at, it was pure relief. I remember giving him a massive hug. God it was good to see a familiar face.

Dad took me home and I remember falling into the arms of my mum. I was safe and with my family. The horror in London was still ongoing but I was ok. It was haunting, horrible, horrendous and yet I had only lived through the very calmest of what had gone on. Had I have not run for that train, I would have been in the thick of it. I would have been wandering around London, on my own, trying to get somewhere in the chaos. I’d only been working in London for 4 months. It just doesn’t even bare thinking about.

It’s been ten years since that day. Every single anniversary has been haunting on the underground. Every year has been a reminder of what happened and that of course, it may happen again at any time. Every journey on every anniversary has been a nervous one. Going back to work after a couple of days of London being ‘closed’ was horrible. Being overly cautious, not reading or listening to anything, just watching everyone. Could that person be a bomber? Is it all going to happen again?

It did. They tried to hurt us again just a few weeks later. But we are strong. We will always bounce back from this kind of thing and we will never, ever let them win.

52 people died that day. Over 700 people were hurt, many with life changing injuries. Thousands were caught up in the carnage. It is a day the world will always remember and a day that will haunt London for life. But today lets not give a single thought to those bastards. Today let’s send a thought to every one of those 52 people who lost their lives and let’s send a thought to those who still have to live with the horror of what happened to their bodies on that day. Yes it was scary for me and every other Londoner, but those 52 are the ones that need to be thought of today.

There is a minute silence at 11.30am to remember the ones we lost. Let’s all remember them together.