7/7: One Day in London

I came to London for the first time in 1961. 1961.

My husband thinks I should actually have some sort of pearly outfit.

I'm from York, so North Yorkshire,

so the sort of hardest part of Yorkshire.

All of my family are Arsenal supporters.

Myself and my youngest son Harry,

we're the black sheep of the family, we follow Spurs.

My first memories of London were coming to London for the weekend,

and the family would kind of,

we'd have a weekend down in the city, where the main event

was to go and see a show in the West End,

which I was always very, very excited about.

It's just too congested, it's just too much noise,

there's just too much going on.

London to me was all about Duran Duran,

and tea and biscuits, probably the Royal family.

In London you can lose your identity

and be anybody you want to be, I suppose.

To move to a city like London, which is so accepting and, you know,

there's huge diversity, it seemed like an ideal place for me to go

and set up my life, really.

HE LAUGHS

The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing

that the Games of the 30th Olympiad in 2012

are awarded to the City of London!

WILD CHEERING

Well, that day, I travelled to my local station,

and my daughter was with me,

she was about 12 at that time,

and normally she would walk to school.

But because we were so excited about the Olympics,

she said, "Mum, I'll see you to the train."

I just thought, "Oh, I could do with

"another ten minutes in bed,"

so I reset my alarm and thought

I'd just get the later train,

the overground train.

My habit has always been to arrive early.

I don't like being late.

Perhaps it's a personality defect.

I can't do it.

It's only myself and my daughter in the mornings,

but it's just chaos in our home.

I managed to get her up

with a bit of shouting,

managed to get breakfast down her,

and then we left out together,

because her school wasn't far from the station that I go in to.

It was just a typical morning for me

except that I had a lot on my mind

because I knew we were going to start

this big move of the library following day.

So I came in half an hour earlier than I normally do.

So she walked me to the station, and I saw a train the station,

and I thought, "I'm not running for that one, I'll get the next one.

"It can wait." So I was talking to her, I said goodbye to her,

and I caught the next train into work.

I've been commuting for 10, 15 years, or more, now.

Generally people don't talk very much to their fellow commuters.

Sometimes you get a group of people chatting to each other,

and then you'll notice other commuters looking over at them,

wishing that they would be quiet.

Because they just want to tuck into their newspaper or book.

It's just like, "Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me!"

You know, I mean, nine times out of ten

they're usually a tourist anyway,

so they don't understand the etiquette of tube behaviour.

So I would look around, and try and get a smile out of someone,

or give someone a smile - something like that anyway. Yeah.

Sometimes some people think you're a bit weird.

I suppose they're all people going somewhere.

I have no painting skills whatsoever, but I love doing this.

I love colours, I love bright colours.

Here's the people going somewhere, again.

I think there's this thing in me that,

I don't really want to be counselled out of where I am at the moment.

It may sound a bit odd, you know, but I don't want to...

It's as if I'm going to be counselled out of not...

thinking about my son,

you understand?

So I tend to... I tend to do it this way.

For me, this is the best way to do it.

It's almost, I still want to hold on to part of the anger as well.

The angry feeling of my son being taken away.

You know, and it's like I need that part of it as well,

to keep me going.

Got off the Victoria line at King's Cross

and I made my way to the Piccadilly line.

And then an announcement was made

that there was going to be delays,

and in that space of a few minutes,

loads of people now started to make their way onto the platform,

and then before I knew it, the platform was heaving with people,

and the train still hadn't come in.

So yeah, ran straight to the top,

and the way that Moorgate tube station is,

the escalator's at the top,

and then I did a right and then you're immediately on the platform.

And then...a tube was coming into the platform,

and I thought, "What a result!"

And then at 8:48, the train came in.

Couldn't get a seat.

So I sort of went to the right and stood in front of the chairs,

but just a little way from the doors.

TRAIN HISSES

It's only one or two stops to travel like this,

where I couldn't raise my hands.

I think the bag I was carrying was trapped

somewhere two or three feet away from me,

so my left arm was probably stretched out

and caught between two other people.

I mean, I'd travelled on the underground at that time

for about 17 or 18 years, and I'd never been on a train that packed.

I was looking round the other passengers

because there was a chap sitting opposite me,

James, I believe his name was, who had caught my eye,

and so I was just looking at the other passengers.

I'd finished reading the newspaper, I wasn't listening to an iPod.

And the train pulled out into the tunnel.

RUSHING AIR

I remember the eastbound train coming in the other direction,

on the tracks alongside us.

I was still reading the Metro newspaper...

and I remember there was suddenly a very loud bang.

SILENCE

This is a book which we were asked to contribute, each family,

some photographs and some words.

There we go. There's a picture of David.

And we just wrote a couple of pages

talking about him growing up at school,

-and the holidays.

-Holidays.

He was a bit sensitive - you know, if anyone said to him,

"Your hair is stuck up," or anything like that...

He took to wearing this cap,

because he had lovely thick hair and he'd wear a cap.

He wore that cup, we couldn't get it off him, could we?

But he had a Goth phase in his teens, which was quite...

-That was quite funny.

-..Funny, wasn't it?

Him and his girlfriend at the time, Jenny.

I always tell the story, I came home one day when he was 15,

and he was putting on Jill's mascara.

And I remember thinking, "Oh, my God, what have we got here?"

And of course he was just going through the goth phase.

-He took to big, black baggy trousers.

-The whole black outfit.

-Black cap, black top.

-Dyed his hair black.

-Dyed his hair black.

I mean, David was...

He was fun, you know?

-I can't talk about it. You'll have to do it.

-All right.

You have to remember, David was 22.

And we'd spent 22 years guiding him

and trying to get him ready for the world.

And in fact, we kind of...

When he started this job that took him to London,

we kind of breathed sigh of relief, didn't we, cos we thought...

-"We got him through his teens."

-Job done.

-We've got him through his teens.

-No drugs, nothing to worry about.

-He's never been arrested.

-No trouble.

We just thought, "Thank God for that." And then he started this job,

and we thought, "Absolutely fantastic, job done."

There was a flash, and lights, and lots of buzzing.

The train shuddered to a halt.

And I remember seeing in the window opposite me

a white flash with a mushrooming, fiery cloud around it.

And then before I had hardly even registered that,

I was just engulfed in the blast.

Just a huge blast of wind and fire.

It was so ferocious, you wouldn't be able to imagine it

unless you'd actually been there.

I just remember this light,

this white light that was just

completely in front of my face.

We were sort of all enveloped in this light,

and it was a sort of feeling of pressure,

it just wouldn't sort of, it wouldn't go away.

The force was such that I really thought that my head

was no longer attached to my shoulders,

and I remember hearing the screams,

which of course doesn't make any sense

cos if I didn't have a head

I wouldn't be able to hear anything,

but I remember hearing the screams

and I just thought that everybody was screaming at me.

I thought this was just an isolated event that had happened to me.

The blast seemed to go on...forever.

I expect it was only a few seconds.

But it seemed to go on and on.

I was sure I was going to die at that point.

And I can remember just thinking of my children, and thinking,

"I don't want to leave my children now, they're not grown up.

"I haven't finished the job I'm doing as a mother."

I just started to see this light smoke,

sort of like...

coming, like, past me.

And then I felt quite light.

And then just I thought to myself,

oh, that I was now beginning to float.

And then I just said to myself,

"How embarrassing, I feel like I'm going to faint."

And that was it, I just went into darkness.

Just went into darkness.

PHONE RINGS

PHONE RINGS

-Duty manager.

-Tony, it's Darren.

-Hello, Darren.

What's happening, mate, do you know?

204, apparently, has reported hearing an explosion on his train.

-Explosion on train, yeah?

-Or a bang on his train.

Hello, pips?

Hello, pip controller here,

just to let you know we've got a T op, 0850 at Russell Square.

CC information, hello?

I'm assistant manager at Aldgate, we've just had a big explosion,

there appears to be something ahead of the train in the track.

Has anyone been injured at all?

-We're not aware that anybody's been injured as yet, no.

-OK.

-But there is smoke.

-Yeah?

-We've lost all power as well.

No power? OK.

Now, you're not the only one who's actually had this done,

so I'm going to confirm with my manager,

-and we, we'll be in touch with you in a sec, all right?

-OK, yes.

Cos I don't know what, whether anything's been called out.

Soon as I know, I'll ring you back, all right?

-OK, thanks.

-Thanks, bye.

No, it won't be that one, I don't think.

Well, I wrote to Tony Blair about 11 days...

I suppose, it must have been, after Emily had been identified.

And I wrote to him and said,

"I utterly blame you and George Bush for the death of my daughter."

I suppose, "yours sincerely, Sarah Jenkins."

And heard nothing.

And was incensed, and wrote again, and heard nothing.

On the third time of writing, I put a stamped, addressed envelope in,

because I felt he might be short of envelopes, really, and nothing.

And then the next occasion I wrote and put a biro in

and a stamped, addressed envelope, and heard nothing.

And on the fourth occasion I wrote with a stamped, addressed envelope,

another biro,

and just scribbled on the back, "If on holiday, please forward."

I've got it here.

"I'm writing on behalf of the Prime Minister

"to thank you for your further letter of the 13th of August.

"I'm enclosing a copy of the Prime Minister's reply to your letter

"of the 22nd of July,

"which crosses with your letter of the 13th of August."

"Dear Mrs Jenkins,

"I'm desperately sorry to hear about

"the death of Emily Rose, your daughter.

"It is impossible for anyone

"who has not lost a child in terrible circumstances

"to understand the agony you must be suffering.

"I don't think it would be sensible to go over the arguments

"about the causes behind the explosions on the 7th of July.

"I continue to believe, however, that the people to blame

"for taking the life of your daughter and so many others

"were those that planned and carried out the bombings

"in London on that day.

"I also recognise there is nothing I can say

"which will help ease your pain or grief.

"Yours sincerely, Tony Blair."

Do you think he feels responsible?

I don't know what he feels in the middle of the night.

No, I expect, I expect Mr Blair doesn't feel responsible,

wouldn't you?

As the smoke cleared, I could see a little around the carriage.

And I realised, there had just been a huge amount of devastation.

The doors were blown off,

there were great pieces of buckled and twisted metal lying around.

All the windows were blown out.

I realised my shoulders and hair were covered in glass.

I couldn't believe I had survived,

I think it's given me a huge respect

for the resilience of the human body,

that any of us could have survived that,

when you saw what it had done to the carriage.

The first thought that went through my mind

was that I was at home in bed having a nightmare,

you know, those nightmares you get when you're in that position,

you either daren't move, or you can't move

because something's frozen you in that space of time.

I thought, "Oh, it's one of those,"

then I thought, "I don't like this very much, go back to sleep,

"and when I wake up it might be different."

But, of course, when I came to again it wasn't different,

I was, it was still dark.

I could smell smoke,

and then I woke up

and found myself lying on a train track,

um, beside a train,

and I could see that we were at a platform,

because I could see, "Aldgate" written on the other side.

I could see the platform on the other side.

So, there was a train, there was myself,

train tracks, and then platform.

I thought I had fallen out,

and almost like, nobody had noticed, sort of thing.

You know, "Trust me to lean on the door,"

and, "What idiot would lean on the door?"

"Something's bound to happen at some point."

Um, and it didn't occur to me that there had been an explosion

or anything like that.

You know, it just wouldn't cross your mind.

I could see this white thing, and I thought, "What's that?"

And then I looked up and it was my new trainer,

that, I'd only worn them that morning,

and I know this sounds so, uh, not shallow, but...

It was my new, sort of, Adidas, shell-toe trainers, white.

You know, it was mid-summer, wasn't it,

I'd just worn them for the first time that morning.

And I could see it on the top of this, the metal,

and, with, like, blood all over it,

and I just thought, "That's my trainer,

"what's that doing up there?"

You know, um, again, not really realising that, you know...

I know now what extent my injuries were, you know.

But not realising that actually, my leg was up there,

it was still attached to my leg.

People were screaming out that they can't feel their legs,

they can't feel their arms, do you know what I mean, they were in pain.

It was so much...

It was just chaos down there, it was just madness.

There was limbs, you could see parts of peoples arms.

Oh.

Some people scared me cos they just looked so scary,

I just felt that I couldn't even reach out to them

and ask them if they were all right.

And that hurts me, because I felt...

Because I knew I needed help,

and I just felt like I couldn't help them.

Sometimes you can't even find

the words to describe what went on down there.

Everything was just black and white, and the only thing that was in...

Oh, it was like a horror movie,

the only thing that was in colour was the blood.

It was just horrible.

Just really horrible.

I didn't check myself over because I knew I hadn't been injured,

seriously injured, I hadn't been hit by anything or struck by anything.

But James, the chap that was sitting opposite me, he stood up,

and was getting very agitated, I think he was very concerned.

Well, I thought I was going to die,

and I was upset because I wanted to go to college still.

Cos I was expected to go to college, still.

And I was just worried and nervous and anxious,

and not very happy.

He mentioned to us that he was autistic

and needed to get to his father, I think it was,

and just, you know, wanted his father.

So, we just had to keep reassuring him that we would be OK,

and we would get out.

Come on, Bibi, come on, Sally, you coming?

This is Sally,

she's named after Lee and Sam.

And we had her in the October after it happened,

so, she's named after Sam and Lee.

So, Sally.

They had been together for 14 years,

they would have still been together now.

Move all these, these are my next things to put into my files.

Yeah, yeah, so...

As you can see, I am a terrible hoarder.

Loads and loads of bits and pieces.

And...I don't know what else I've got in here.

All these photographs, there's Lee. Dancing away. Not knowing what to do.

He was like a dad before he got to be a dad,

you know, like an older dad.

-He danced like a dad?

-Yeah.

-Embarrassing dancing?

Yeah, embarrassing dancing, yes. Terribly.

There's Sammy, doing her dance and her jig.

And this is all Lee's stuff that we've kept together.

His coat...and some clothes.

There's his, er...

..beige trousers.

And his shirt, that he used to wear.

He just...isn't with us.

So that I can touch any more, but all this stuff, I can touch.

This is his, his things.

It just means that I've got him. Here.

I need...

..to cling onto something that is him.

I can't hold him any more, but I can hold his things.

This was taken by a newspaper.

I saw this the day after it happened, and didn't believe it.

Didn't want to believe it.

But that's my Lee.

Taken...

That's my Lee, trying to be resus-ed.

TEARFULLY: That's my boy.

My handsome man.

RAPID BEEPING

Nobody in my carriage was hurt,

we weren't knocked over or anything like that.

And then we noticed that smoke was coming in through the end door,

of the carriage.

So I got my warrant card out. I said, "I'm a police officer, let me through."

So I left my carriage, walked through to the next carriage.

And then it became apparent that something quite bad had happened,

because people were coming towards me with blood on them,

shaking, very slow, covered in dirt.

I thought, "Oh, we've had an accident. We've hit something."

I thought I was going into a train crash.

That's when I remember this figure coming towards us,

um, from that carriage.

And then...I just remember these piercing blue eyes,

'of this lady, and I just saw her, and all I kept saying to her was,'

'"My name is Martine Wright, please tell my mum and dad I'm OK,

'"my name's Martine Wright."

'She said, "Help me, help me.'

"I think my gut's hanging out," I think's what she said.

And I said, "Yes, I'll help you, you're going to be all right.

"you're going to be all right. Help's coming."

And then she gave me something.

She said, "Put that round your left leg."

And again, it's one of those sort of...

It's quite vivid, my memory of that is quite vivid.

And I just kept thinking, this is out of a Western.

This is out of a Western film.

I remember being a kid and watching Westerns with John Wayne and stuff.

Someone had been shot in the leg, and then you'd get a belt

and tie it around, tourniquet round your leg to stop the bleeding.

I just remember just pulling it so tight, so tight,

and just... And not remembering the pain, I don't remember the pain.

PHONE RINGS

'Network operations manager.

'Darren, I don't know what's gone on down there,

'but people are coming up here with blackened faces,

'all blood in their faces and they're very distressed.

'So it definitely looks like an explosion, yeah?

'Something's gone badly wrong down there.

'We really don't know at the moment, we just had a loud bang.

-'People are coming with cuts, all covered in shit.

-All right.

'Is there any more casualties than just the one you know?

'No, just walking wounded at the moment,

'and the one we know that's under the train with legs missing.

-'All I know at the moment.

-All right, OK.

'We've still seen no ambulances here.

'They're on their way, obviously, we've...

'You need to make them aware it is a big incident, we want a few.

-'Yeah, OK.

-Cheers.'

-LINE CUTS OFF

'I could see people in the carriage alongside,'

and they were frantically trying to pull open the doors on their carriage.

The people in the train beside us started smashing the windows,

to try and help.

People were passing over bottles of water.

But obviously there wasn't a huge amount they could do.

There was one or two people climbed over,

I think they had first aid skills.

We did start shouting across saying, "We need some help here,

"first-aiders or people with medical knowledge, training.

"We need some help here."

I was aware that there was quite a lot of attention

around the middle of the carriage.

There was a guy who looked like he was wedged in a hole,

trying very, very vigorously to get out.

So we tried to help him get out, I suppose, without thinking,

that's what you do.

He wasn't well. Um...

He wasn't well, I knew, because he wasn't moving.

His limbs that I could see, his arms were not flailing around.

But he had facial expression, um...

As I walked towards him, again, I said who I was.

I did ask him his name but he wasn't able to tell me a name.

'He said nothing in a verbal sense,

'but it was comforting to him to have somebody talking to him.

'I climbed out of...beyond him to the far side of the train,'

telling him I was going underneath the train surface to see why he was,

could I release him from whatever was keeping him trapped in there.

'And what I found was the lower half of Stan's body

'was no longer attached to the top half.'

And his torso had been severed in that way,

by being blasted into the floor from his seated position,

and obviously, it acted in a very sort of knife-like way.

Very soon, and I don't think I can even give you

a measure of 30 seconds, a minute and a half, I don't know,

a very short space of time, um... his life ended.

He stopped breathing, and as you do that,

and the brain starts to shut down and your muscles relax,

and I was able to lower Stan to the track.

I did it for... partly selfish reasons

for my own comfort, that I'd done what I could

and he wasn't left in that foul position,

and also, because, um...

I just felt it would be, er,

the right thing to do.

I noted also that his eyes were still open,

and I do remember actually closing his eyelids, because...

For one real positive reason, it felt wrong to me, incongruous,

to be still looking at a world that he was no longer part of.

I said a short prayer for Stan,

whether he was a man of a religious following or not,

that I felt I wished him a safe journey to wherever it was

that he believed he was going next,

as I closed his eyes.

A very...

A very hard moment, very hard moment indeed.

"Stan Brewster, 1953-2005."

"Construction of this unique walkway was led by Stan Brewster,

"chartered civil engineer of Derbyshire county council,

"tragically lost his life in the London bombings of July 7th, 2005.

"Stan took a special pride in this project,

"and the walkway now stands as a permanent reminder of his professional life and work."

Half site, half was built on, like, stilts. As you can see.

And then this part...

This part was, like, cantilevered off this wall.

I couldn't, I couldn't build something like this!

When you're young, I don't think you appreciate your dad, like,

you know what I mean? Until you grow older.

And that's what, that's what I kind of miss now.

I kind of miss when you're that age and your dad says,

"Let's go out and do something together," and it's like...

at that age, you don't really feel like doing it with him, do you know what I mean?

And that's what I kind of miss now.

I'd love to go and play golf with him,

love to go and have a pint with him, it's things like that...

-Oh!

-How you doing?

-I'm all right, yeah.

I think it's easier when you, like, I don't know.

I think it's easier when you ask me questions.

It's hard, it all messes up in your head, it's hard to get it out.

'The day after we knew what had happened to Stan,'

'Mark, he was just 17, and he'd got his driving test.'

And I can remember sitting on the back lawn,

and there was loads of people here, and I said,

"Mark, I don't think you're up for this, to do your driving test."

And he walked up the garden and said, "Mum, I'm going to do it

"cos I want to do it to make you smile again."

And off he went and did his driving test, and he came back and passed.

He ran up the garden, crying.

And I was crying as well, and he said, "I've done it, Mum."

And I said to him, "Dad would have been proud of you."

But he said, "I've done it to make you smile again.

"I just want you to smile again."

People always said, like, you've got to be strong for your mum

and your sister and that.

It's happened now. It's the way you deal with it, I think.

You got to get on with life, like...

There'd be no point living if you...

You've just got to enjoy what you've got.

I mean, my dad wouldn't want me to just curl up in a ball, no way.

It'd be wrong to do that.

PHONE RINGS

-Hello, Pic.

-Hello there.

We heard a loud bang in the region of Russell Square

on Russell Square westbound platform.

Then our TT tripped. I've had the DSM go down at Russell Square.

He could find no damage to the platform area but there's something,

I can't get in contact with anyone at King's Cross

but customers are detraining themselves from West 311

-which is over the crossover just west of King's Cross.

-Yeah.

They're walking east and detraining themselves onto the westbound platform.

All right, look after whatever you can

and I'm going to get a decision now on what we're going to do.

All right, I'll come back to you, Gary.

We need ambulances and water to Russell... To King's Cross.

-I understand what you're saying.

-And Russell Square.

Yeah, we'll get what we can to you.

PHONE HANGS UP

At Russell Square, it's one of the deepest parts of the Piccadilly Line

and it's quite a way down.

I believe there's about 179 steps

on the emergency stairs at Russell Square.

I went down to have a look to see if there was anything untoward.

It's a single-track tunnel and it's very dusty, it's quite humid

and it's very compact.

Once the train's in there and moving,

there's not no space for anything else.

Throughout this,

you read the stories of people who acted in a heroic way that day,

but I can't count myself amongst them

because the only thought in my mind

was to get off that train and get home to my family.

My daughter would have been...six... five-and-a-half or six years old

so I certainly didn't, you know,

I didn't want to let my daughter grow up without a father

so my only, my only aim was to get off that train

and get home safely to my family.

All of a sudden I heard this very commanding voice that said...

The driver said that once he's checked that the power is off,

I want all those who can to walk to the front of the carriage.

There wasn't many of us...

that walked, that, you know... listened to the train driver

or that was able to leave the...the carriage.

Everybody was quite polite, surprisingly.

So there was a line of people in front of me,

just people walking quite slowly in front of me

and I had my hand on the person in front of me

because I was bleeding quite a lot from my head

and I was worried about fainting

and we didn't know if the tracks were going to be live

so I didn't want to, I didn't want to fall over.

There was a guy that had been screaming for some considerable time

and he was immediately behind me, but he kept falling over,

so I turned around and said to this guy,

"Hold onto the back of my jacket, when you're going to fall,"

which he did, and occasionally...

It took about 10, 12 minutes to walk to Russell Square,

he fell and the guy behind him picked him up

and he held the back of my coat again.

And we walked towards Russell Square.

When I was walking round checking the track,

I noticed a light in the westbound tunnel

by the east end of the platform

and the light got closer and closer

and whilst this was happening, I realised there was something wrong.

When the light got to me,

it was the driver of train 311

with about 12 to 15 seriously, some seriously injured customers

bleeding very heavily, very traumatised.

We helped them up onto the platform.

I asked the driver, "What's happened?"

And he said, "I don't know,

"but there's people down there that need help."

And after that, I jumped down onto the track

and made my way into the tunnel towards the train.

MUEZZIN CALL TO PRAYER

ALARM BEEPING

We've had reports of explosions at Edgware Road, Liverpool Street.

I've just spoken to the Pic.

-They believe they've had an explosion at Russell Square.

-Right.

We're trying to establish what all lines have got

and what they're doing as we speak.

That's all I've got, but it looks like all lines are having problems

-and people are self-detraining.

-Three separate incidents?

-Three, yeah.

-Code Amber?

-Code Amber?

-Yeah.

-Hold on one second.

Code Amber the whole network?

Code Amber the whole network. We're going to stop the whole network.

-All right, darling.

-Code Amber, get them into stations and stand by?

-Yeah, that's all we're going to do.

-OK.

-All right, mate. Cheers.

-Bye.

I could see people coming out of Edgware road with bandages on,

black faces, you know, soot, blood,

there was a guy at the ticket barriers, some underground staff,

and I said, "Are there many more people down there?"

And he said, "Oh, yeah, loads. The train was full."

So I said, "Well...

"What are we talking about?"

He said, "There's quite a few dead down there."

And I thought, "Right, OK. Are you certain about that?"

"Yeah, yeah, there's quite a few dead."

And I thought, "Right, OK, well,

"I need to get down there now and find out what is going on."

So I went through the barriers

and I was trying to use my radio all the time and it just,

when you try and transmit, and it's not communicating,

you just get this beeping noise, like a "beeeep,"

and that's all I was getting all the time I was trying to use this radio

and then I was trying to use my mobile phone.

I was getting nothing on that and I'm thinking,

"I'm not really going to be able to do too much on my own down here,"

you know, I've got one bandage with me and that's all I had, really.

But the further I got down, the less able I was to turn around.

So I just went further down the track

and eventually got to the carriage.

Everything was unrecognisable,

you know, the inside of the carriage, the seats all seemed to be gone,

you know, the post, the glass, everything was gone.

It was just like a tube with blood and twisted metal just thrown in,

thrown on the ceiling, thrown up the walls, just everywhere,

it was everywhere, and you just couldn't make out what had gone on.

And a guy was laying there on his back, just looking up at the ceiling,

and I looked at him and I spoke to him and I said, "Are you all right?"

Obviously a bit, "Are you all right?" "No, I'm not all right."

And he kind of said something along the lines of, "What's happened?"

You know, "What's happened?"

Right, you know, I thought, "Well, if he doesn't know, I don't know."

Erm...

So I just said, "Can you walk?" And he said, "No, I can't move."

So I got down and started to deal with him, really.

PHONE RINGS

-Duty office manager.

-Yeah, hello there, it's Lee Osbourne in the NTC.

Hello there. I've been trying to get hold of you.

We've heard desperate shouts from both ends

at Aldgate and Praed Street and Edgware Road.

They're still desperately waiting for emergency services.

We've got two major incidents.

The emergency services have declared they're on their way down there.

-We're issuing a systemwide Code Amber.

-Right...

My main concern were the ones, the people that were alive,

to try and pacify them, speak to them

and just let them know that we were there to help

and help was on its way

and hopefully we'd get them out of there as soon as we could.

Sometimes I felt as if my mind was just separating out from my body.

As if I was coming apart, and then I would just have to focus

and think, "No, I've got to just hold on, I've got to stay conscious

"and just hold on. They'll come. They'll rescue us."

It was a long period of just waiting.

This is the bedroom that James used to sleep in.

Where that bed is now, there was a bunk bed,

but it had a desk.

It was bought for him while he was at school doing his homework

so he had the desk there and got up into the bunk bed.

Yes, so nothing, not a great deal has changed,

but there's none of his personal stuff in here.

So what did you do with James's personal stuff?

His letters and things, I shredded them. I destroyed them, basically.

I... Other people may find that a strange thing to do

but I just thought it was important.

I just bought that we had no right to pry into certain things.

It just didn't seem the right thing to do, to me, and it still doesn't.

I still think that it wouldn't have...

I mean, I obviously had to look through them,

but I...no, I just couldn't.

I couldn't just keep them. It didn't...

We had enough things to remember, photographs and that sort of thing,

it just didn't seem to be the right thing to do.

-That was taken about...

-It was Dan.

-Yeah, four days before...

-It wasn't, it was two days, it was Monday evening.

-That was in Prague.

-The week he was killed.

-He was in Prague, with his friends.

When it happened, it kind of, you wait for the phone to ring,

you're kind of hoping and praying

and on the... I think it was the Saturday,

I'd come here, to Mum and Dad's on the Friday evening

and they just needed to do something

so we did, we made the posters and we went to King's Cross and stuff,

putting up the posters and seeing the other people that were up there

and thinking, "I can't believe that I'm doing this.

"This is... I don't, why is this me?

"Why am I having to do this?

"Why am I having to put pictures of my brother up?"

And for other people to be able to walk past and go,

"God, that's really awful." I want to be one of them.

I want to be one of those people walking past

going, "That's really awful, that's really sad,"

and be able to empathise from afar. I don't want to be embroiled in this.

I want my life back. Please give me my life back.

Please let me know, and I remember standing on the Mile End Road

and just saying, "Just let it stop.

"Please let everything stop till I know."

But, yeah.

It's OK.

Well, I'm just literally stuck in another traffic jam

outside King's Cross. What I did see was at least half a dozen people

who have blackened faces and in some cases I saw head wounds,

in fact, I've just seen one young man who was being treated

had a huge bandage put around his head.

I remembered one thing hitting me that makes you think,

"What am I doing?" is that you're heading toward something

that so many people are trying to get away from,

so you're fighting through the crowds of hundreds

to get to the point that they're trying to leave.

As soon as I got out of the ambulance,

I made the decision that I'd go downstairs to see what was going on.

As you're going down, you could start to get a spell of burning

and the air has got, like, a taste to it, almost,

of burnt plastic and things

and then you start getting close to the platform

and then it sort of hits you that this is actually quite real.

The smoke you can now see billowing down the dark track,

and it's a black hole. You're looking down a black hole

and you've just got these little miners' lamps, almost

and you can then hear screaming and shouting

and the hairs on the back of your neck sort of stand on end.

Although we're ambulance people, paramedics or whatever,

we're still human, and I just...

You know, the impulse is to run away with everybody else.

I didn't particularly want to go down that train.

I didn't particularly want to see the things that I saw

or deal with the things I dealt with.

And then the emergency services and the paramedics,

they just arrived like a wave coming through the train.

Fireman, policemen, ambulance, everywhere,

you know, literally swamped.

I was relieved to see them, but also very angry.

I'd been there for quite an amount of time.

I didn't know it was 40 minutes at the time,

but it seemed like an eternity I'd been there.

And they brought in these emergency lights

and I thought I'd been leaning on a bundle of rags

or, you know, a bag or something like that

and I looked over and it was...

It was like a big piece of someone, with a bone sticking out of it.

And I looked at the sleeve of my shirt, cos everything was now light

and it was just red with blood,

from above the elbow to the bottom.

When the paramedics eventually did come through

and I decided now was the time for me to leave

because the experts were here

and I was only going to get in their way,

erm, I walked back through the empty train...

and it was empty cos everyone else had left.

And that's when I started to shake.

You know, that's when the shock really hit me.

I had to hold on to the handrails to get myself out of the train

because I was shaking so much.

'It's chaos everywhere.

'I've just come past Russell Square, they've closed it off.'

-'Say again. You just came past where?'

-'Russell Square Station.'

'They've closed it all off. D'you think it's a major disaster?'

'Well, let's not speculate...'

'Scotland Yard says that at approximately 8.50 this morning,

'they were called to Aldgate, London Transport Station,

'to assist the City of London Police and...'

'There's no sense that this is in any way terrorist-related.

'There's no signs of anyone imagining that there might be

'any further danger in this area.'

I took a cup of tea in to watch the television.

I was watching the news, news programmes,

and then saw this thing unfolding and...

..of course, nobody knew what it was,

it was a power surge, no suggestion it was terrorism.

And Anat was on the phone to me from a mobile,

telling me the problems she was having on the journey

and I was saying, "Well, this has happened and this has happened."

Yeah, we were keeping in touch, and she got to Euston Station

and said, "Oh, the trains have stopped."

She said, "I'm outside Euston." And she said, "There's a great crowd.

"You know...

"I need to get a bus, what am I going to do?"

And to my eternal regret, I said, "Well, be smart. Walk back.

"Get on the stop before Euston."

So she did that and then eventually phoned back and said,

"Oh, that worked." She said, "I've got a seat on a number 30."

I learned by listening to the radio that the tubes had come to a halt

and that a lot of people were getting off the tubes,

getting onto buses

and the traffic was getting really heavy at that time.

We started work and one of the employers come down called Roger,

saw the laughter and said,

"Pointless making sandwiches today, the tube lines have all broken down.

"No-one can get in at the moment."

There were so many people at the bus stop,

so I was wondering what happened.

I thought it was just a busy day.

I entered Tavistock Square,

and drove on the side opposite to BMA House, around the square.

In the queue of traffic coming down was a bus.

And we carried on talking,

she told me about the bus being diverted down

towards Tavistock Square,

and because I was involved in a local amenity group,

involved with their newsletter,

Anat said, "Well, whatever's happening,

"this should make something for your newsletter."

And as soon as she said, "newsletter,"

I heard terrible screams in the background.

Nothing from Annette.

Not an "Oh, my God,"

not a breath, nothing at all, and then her phone went dead.

And I knew then that...

..something terrible had happened.

I knew that, you know, if she'd had any possibility

of communicating with me, she would have done.

If I hadn't have been so damn smart and said to her,

"Oh, beat the queues," you know.

But to actually have directed her onto that bus...

I heard what sounded like a firecracker,

that went right across from left to right,

and the next thing I remember was lots of noises

and I couldn't open my eyes.

The ceiling of the bus, erm...

..crashed onto my shoulder.

And it must have pushed me down and maybe instinctively

I held my hands in front of my eyes,

which was lucky because I had some bad wounds on my left hand.

I just heard the sound, and after the sound I didn't know where I was.

I was on the floor.

I saw some people are dead,

some people with blood coming from their eyes,

some people with blood coming from their heads.

People don't normally get that close to large explosions

and don't know what they look like.

It was loud, but it was a black centre with smoke around it,

and everything seemed to shoot out of it,

including, as I fell down to the seat,

a person that was flying up in the air

with a complete look of shock and surprise on her face.

In that second and a half, so much goes through your mind

and goes in and is trapped there...this is a bomb,

I'm too close, I could be killed in the next instant.

And people have been injured.

Everything sort of goes into your mind and stays there.

I just want to say something about Neetu.

-OK.

-Shall I start it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

"Neetu was my youngest daughter, who was killed on 7th of July,

"year 2005, due to a bus explosion in London.

"I always see Neetu, smiling and laughing,

"and never saw any disappointment on her face.

"Neetu was a very special gift from God.

"As a child, she loved school very much. She was very happy."

Our friend Milan is an officer. He brought to us Neetu's purse.

This item in my hand is her London Transport travel card,

because she was travelling from Hendon Central

to Old Street every day.

If she's running short of money,

she can get money from any till machine.

And if she wants to borrow a book from the library,

she also have a library card here.

She will go, on her way back home,

she will go to the library and get a book.

The damage was the pockets. See the pockets?

These are all damaged because of the explosion here.

And the outside

is all damaged in here.

Detective Sergeant arranged to clean it when he brought it to us.

He said it was all filled with blood.

Everywhere was blood, but he clean it and brought it to us,

because it is her personal possession, you know.

So I'm keeping it here.

The only thing was missing was her mobile telephone.

When I was ringing her on 7th of July,

I only used to get the message, "Neetu speaking.

"I'll come back to you as soon as possible."

We visited all hospital around London. There were 12 hospitals.

No, we couldn't get any clue.

After waiting seven days and nights, desperately and anxiously,

there came the day of 14th July, when two detective officers

gave us this heartbreaking news

that Neetu's body has been positively identified.

What can I say now?

I...I remember somebody saying that they were trying

to deal with people in order of urgency.

A couple of chaps came over to me,

and one of them shone his torch in my face.

And I remember him saying, you know, "This one's gone."

Erm, and then they sort of moved on, and I just...you know,

it's almost sort of like anger, outrage really.

You know...cos I wanted to attract their attention,

and I couldn't get the energy to do it then, it was so difficult

to breathe and difficult to move and I think that's when I really

got the sort of adrenaline rush or whatever that I needed to get up.

Opposite where the bomb went off,

there were two quite severely injured people with lower leg,

traumatic lower leg amputations.

She was blown sort of sideways, with her legs, what was left of her legs

wrapped round the handrail, I think, outside the train as well.

Martine, I don't think, really knew the extent of her injuries.

I'd like to think she didn't.

So we had to unwrap her legs without any anaesthetic.

I was at the head end,

sort of supporting her shoulders as we got onto the stretcher.

And I'll never forget it. She just looked right up into my eyes

and the torch I had was shining in her face

so her whole face was illuminated, looked right into my eyes,

let out this horrendous scream and just reached up

and dug her nails into my arms and scratched all the way down.

Because I'm sure she was in so much pain,

she just needed to have some sort of release.

I think that was what that was about, but it was...

..it was quite a horrendous thing to see.

I'd never heard a scream like that before.

No, don't remember...

..anything, really, erm,

until I woke up in hospital,

which I think was about ten days later or nine days later.

I can remember that as vividly now as I could an hour after the incident.

It's...I'll never forget it.

There was an element of sort of handing myself over to these guys.

They were helping me and I had,

I could sort of take a bit of a step back and let them get on with it.

People were in their pants and socks,

and I remember thinking, "Where have their clothes gone?" Erm...

..you know, I hadn't been...

I hadn't witnessed blast injuries before, it's not something I'd seen.

And, er, people's clothes literally get blown off them.

By all accounts, I had my underpants on, one shoe and a sock,

and that was it.

I remember going up the stairs, one of them saying,

complaining how, "Why do we always get the heavy one?"

And I remember, even though I was completely out of it thinking,

"This guy's...time for somebody to crack a joke

"in this sort of situation."

After a while, I just sat down on the floor by the ticket machines

and...because I didn't know what to do,

and then I saw people being brought out of the tunnel.

I was near the lifts,

and what I was seeing coming out of the lifts just broke me.

It's just something you never forget.

I mean, you don't expect to get out of a lift in a ticket hall

of a London Underground station and see what would be considered

a battlefield hospital, working on people,

holding arms and legs up in the air

and saline applications going on.

The fact that they'd come out of the carriage that I was in

made it that much worse.

So I thought, "I've had enough, I'm off."

I remember one particular case.

She was lying right in front of the BMA House,

and she would look at me straight,

the eye contact we'll make,

I will go and sit by her side, hold her hand,

put my hand on her forehead, and she wanted to say something.

Well, she could not say.

She might have just had an injury which could have been dealt with.

But, without the equipment, you can't do anything, you see.

So it was very frustrating.

Azuma, when was the last time you two were...?

The night before.

Erm, she come home from work and me and my brother

sat with her in the front room and she cooked,

and we sat and laughed and giggled and teased her as always.

And I remember she asked me to make her some tea and I was like, "Oh!

"You're just sending me around like your servant."

And she came in the kitchen and really cuddled me,

and then the next day I was supposed to go to my auntie's house,

so I couldn't find my keys that night,

so she stayed up with me looking for my keys.

I ended up being like, "Go to bed.

"You've got to get up at what time? It's now, like, just past 12."

And so, I just said to her, "I'll see you tomorrow."

And she was like, "OK,"

and she closed my bedroom door, and that was the last time I saw her.

Seven years almost down the line, I still have dreams of her.

I dream of her quite regularly. Those kind of stuff won't go away.

Just before she died, when I'd finished my GCSEs,

I had my leavers' prom, and I made her take the day off,

and she came and helped me get ready.

We went together to buy my dress.

So, yeah, I kind of had all that with her,

so we were really, really close.

I think that is what is so painful for me now.

Cos my friends are now getting close to their mums,

but my mum's not here anymore.

And I'm not going to have all that stuff with her.

She's not going to be there when I get married

or when I have my own kids.

And I think that's a bit painful.

And that's why I don't think I'll ever get over it,

cos there'll always be things where I feel like

I need her there and she's missing.

Yeah, that's seven years down the line.

It doesn't go away.

SIRENS BLARING

We was met by a policeman who had shut the road off at the time.

He asked me what am I going to,

and cos I had no knowledge of the other incidents going on,

I thought it was a very strange question,

so I just said to him, "The bus," which was in front of me then.

And he said to me, "Right, OK."

He said, "The walking wounded have gone through the arch of the BMA.

"There's dead and dying everywhere,

"and we suspect a secondary device on the bus,"

and then he let me through his cordon.

We were confronted with photographers.

It was disturbing because we were there

trying to deal with the casualties,

and they were like little ants all over the place,

quite frenzied around, trying to get the best angle,

get the best shot they could do.

Some people were already dead.

But I managed, God save it, I managed to walk.

In the bus, I was located right behind the bomber.

The one thing that I still can't compute, I suppose,

if compute is the right word, is...

how can anybody survive an explosion

when they were literally centimetres close, next to the bomber?

There was a point when Liz and I

were the only two injured survivors left on the train.

And they started to get's ready to take me out to an ambulance.

They were getting ready to lift me onto a stretcher.

And then they change their minds and one of them said to me,

"I'm sorry, you've drawn the short straw."

And they decided to take Liz instead.

And then I was left in the train for another half an hour or so, I think.

As they were carrying me out of the tunnel on the stretcher...

..I remember, after all that time in the dark,

it seemed as if the station was just glowing with light.

It was a very... emotional moment for me.

Coming up in the daylight, I can remember being carried through

out of the station to the ambulance and just as

they put me into the ambulance, catching a glimpse of the sky.

There's a glass canopy over the entrance to the station

and I remember that glimpse of the class canopy and the summer sky above it.

It was the most wonderful thing I've seen.

Once wed confirmed that there were no more alive people on the train,

it was time to leave.

All these people were standing there, thinking of their own little worlds

at the time of the explosion, or before the explosion.

What they were doing at work, where they were going,

what they've got to do, or not got to do,

what they got for tea, if they've just had an argument.

They're listening to the iPhones, mobile phones,

their Walkman or whatever.

Then all of a sudden, there's an explosion and they all become one.

You know, some days I woke up and I would just not stop crying.

It was what am I going to do?

I remember one day saying to my mum, "What am I going to do?

"I've got no legs, I've got no legs."

And I remember she grabbed my face.

And she said, "Martine, you are still Martine

"and you could have had a really bad knock on the head

"or really bad brain injury and you didn't,

"so you are still Martine and you are still here

"and you can get new legs, you're going to get new legs."

He came to the hospital and I said to him,

he sat on the bed and I said, "Lewis, I've got something to tell you."

And he said, "What?" I usually say, "Don't say what, say pardon."

And I said, "You've got two legs, now I've got some problems, I've only got one."

And I said, "Actually, I've got one and a half,

"so what am I going to do about walking?"

And he turned around and looked me and he says,

"You just have to hop and I just have to help you.

"And let's see who can stand on one leg the longest."

I'm looking at memos my counsellor wrote.

Each counselling session, he wrote down something

and he gave it to me at the end of each session.

I've never talked to the children about it and I don't know

whether they've heard from other people and know anyway.

Um...

..or whether, you know, this will come as a shock to them.

I literally bottled it all up.

I can't remember what I said,

but I just obviously confirmed the fact that I was on that train.

But I didn't mention anything about the casualties that I'd seen

and what had gone on in the carriage.

I'd say I wasn't affected, but my wife would disagree with you.

She'd say I was...

..um, argumentative.

She said it was like... How did she describe it?

She said it was like walking on eggshells around me.

That was quite...that was quite sad.

Yes. "I now choose to let go of all my fears about dying on the tube."

I've never felt traumatised by my experience.

It brings home to you that you never know what is around the corner.

Very random decisions can radically change your future.

If I'd been standing up on that train that day, I probably wouldn't be here now.

Because I chose to sit down, I'm still here to tell the tale.

We had an evil act by four people,

but it was met with this huge surge of goodness and kindness...

..that carried a lot of us through.

A lot of my injuries were related to basically human shrapnel.

Part of the bomber's shinbone had gone into my left eye.

It was irreparably damaged from that.

I've been asked a number of times about my feelings about the bomber

and there's just nothing to grab hold of, I don't really have an angle.

It's difficult, it's almost like I'm more angry that I can't be angry about it.

That probably doesn't make any sense, but that's how I feel.

There's just no form to it,

I can't see an angle to my opinion on it really.

I've just had to get on with it,

so my angle really is I've got on with it, recovered a normal life

and we can enjoy stuff that these people didn't want to enjoy.

They say that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,

and it seems that 95% of what has happened since then has been positive.

There's been so much fundraising, outpouring of support.

Everyone has their different ways of dealing with

the situation that we found ourselves in.

For us, it was really a sanity saver

to do something constructive in Miriam's memory.

This building is an eye hospital, and the Miriam Hyman

Children's Eye Care Centre is these few rooms down here.

The first patient of the Children's Eye Care Centre

who I was lucky enough to meet. There is with his parents having an assessment.

We know that if we allowed ourselves to go on a downward spiral

into the depths of despair, that it would be

almost an insult to her if we allowed ourselves to also

lose our lives as a result of her losing hers.

Unless you've had your family member blown up in a terrorist attack,

you can't even imagine how it feels.

So it's pointless to try and describe it,

but I think it's much more constructive to talk about how you respond.

Our life is defined by before 7 July 2005 and after the seventh.

It's just like you've got two separate lives - before and after -

and we don't much talk about before, do we?

-No.

-Truthful, it's almost as if something stopped then

and it's easy to cope by moving on.

Since David died, we went on a cruise on a holiday,

and for dinner you go down and sit on a table of maybe

five other couples and you don't know each other,

but the one thing you have in common is you talk about your children.

So you are always asked, "Do you have children?"

And you sit there and go, "Yes, we have a son and a daughter."

And then you're asked, "How old are they? What do they do?"

And you're so conscious that you are going to drop the bomb

which is the biggest conversation stopper when you say...

Everybody is on holiday.

-We've stopped...

-We don't say, "No, we've only got a daughter."

-We can't say that.

-"So you've got a son. What do they do?" "Well, actually...

"he was killed."

I mean, that's a beautiful photograph of her.

Those two are just absolutely lovely.

She had the most beautiful eyes.

The most sparkly, laughy eyes.

And a very dirty laugh.

Where did she get that from?

I'm not sure, but not my side of the family.

And I always keep a rose on the desk for her because she was Emily Rose.

Christian was five years older than me, so a nice age.

Everything I've learned from him.

It was nice, he tried to avoid me at school.

He didn't want to mess up his reputation.

-But at the same time, he tried to protect you.

-Yes, he always did.

-Warning off all the boys.

-Yeah.

Nanette was born to be a dancer.

She had a dancer's long neck, expressive face,

eloquent hands and abundant vitality.

He was really not practical, he wasn't a practical person.

He found it quite difficult to apply himself to practical things, really.

That is serious attempt at putting on sun cream.

-In fact, I had to teach and how to shave on that holiday.

-Pardon?

Don't even go there!

This is the first time we've ever spoken to anybody about it,

because it was always too raw and I just feel like...

Stan was such a lovely man that I wanted to just tell people

how it's affected us and how it still does affect us.

I hate the expression "to move on". People say, "Have you moved on?"

What does that mean?

You can't, I mean, you don't move on,

you learn to live with this enormous hole in your heart that...

that just you know is never going to get better

and it becomes part of you and you get absorbed by...

..by your grief.

But you do operate and you get on with your own life.

But there is always a hole in your heart.

Tonight, in every country in the world,

young men and women and boys and girls

will go to sleep dreaming that in seven years

they will come to this city to run faster and jump higher

and throw farther than anyone has done before.

There are those...

there are those...

who tell the world that we face a clash of civilisations.

I say to them, "Come to London and see the world gathered

"in one city, living in harmony and as an example to all."

I always go to Russell Square station

and I stand in front of the plaque.

I take my flowers and I pay my respects, I pay my respects.

Last year, I was standing in front of the plaque and I was sobbing.

There was this businessman and I was sobbing,

and this businessman was just walking past

and he just put his briefcase down and he said, "You need a hug."

And we just embraced, it was just a nice hug.

10 seconds, it could have been, I don't even know how long it was.

He just said, "Are you all right?" And I just said to him, "Thank you."

And he picked up his case and off he went.

And that was amazing because I've never had that since.

Every time I've gone to the station.

So, if he's ever watching this, I'd like to say thank you.

You know, when I think about Laura, a young lady who unfortunately died

who was very, very close to me at the time, she was the same age as me,

she was in the same profession as me, and just because of

where she was stood and where I was sat, I survived and she didn't.

And I find that quite hard to come to terms with.

But after I had spoken at the inquest,

Laura's brother spoke to me.

And I...

I think he really helped me to pile all those feelings aside

that I had about Laura

and about the fact that I had survived and she hadn't.

And he basically said to me that Laura was such a fun-loving girl

who really made the most of life and, you know, did so much with her life,

she would want you to get on with your life and to really make...

..really make the most of it.

And that really helped a lot because for a long time I'd been carrying that around,

you know, feeling guilty on one side for...

be...

..being here and getting on.

And the fact that, you know, other people hadn't been able to do that.

But it just felt that it was...

it just felt so good to know that if she had been in my place,

that's what she would have done.

She would have really got on with her life as well.

So I'm really grateful that he had that conversation with me.

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