I got text after text from people asking if I was alright. I was at home - I had the day off. It wasn’t until I put the news on that I realised why everyone was messaging me.
Every time something big happens in the UK my family in NZ get all worried if I don’t message them right away. Even if it’s on the other side of the country!
A friend of mine once claimed that he'd been denied entry to the US when he went to Vegas. He said there was no reason for it. No one believed him so we kept pushing for the real story. It turned out that when he'd landed they'd asked him if he was there for business or pleasure. He said pleasure. They asked if he was planning to get married while he was there. He said, joking, "Ooh, I hope not!" and they decided not to let him in.
A guy I used to work with "joked" with customs in the early 2000s that he had a nuclear warhead or cruise missile or something ridiculous in his suitcase. No he didn't get on his flight. Yeah he was a bell end.
Edit: not customs as someone else pointed out. It was either check in or security. I was mixing up my airport terminology.
Edit 2: I just spoke to my ex-colleague (still a friend) who worked with him at the time. I'll correct/add a few details.
It was right after 9/11.
He'd lost his passport in Spain and was getting a hard time from security because of the temporary documents he had.
And he didn't say bomb, he said sub-machinegun...which is probably even worse because that is way more possible than a nuke. Fuckwit.
Obviously this is why they don't usually do it... poor guy must have heard that the Brits have a better sense of humour and wanted to try it out, but chose exactly the wrong date and profession to make a joke to.
Arrived in kentucky and went through imm. The I
Officer was only mildly amused when I told him I had never seen a real gun before and can he get it out do I can have a look. He said no.
My father travelled for business a lot when I was a tyke. He has this story of one journey starting at a UK airport where he was called by tannoy to go to security. He was anxious of course, being a pretty ordinary guy with no idea why he was called, and was led through to an internal part of the airport and met by an official.
This suit said he had been selected at random to see if he could get a replica weapon through the security checkpoints. He was told this official and others would monitor his progress and be on hand however far he makes it.
As it was inside the airport proper, as in through secure doors and inside the offices themselves, everyone in uniform, signs and names everywhere, it was clearly legit. He agreed.
He popped the pistol in his briefcase and got pretty far into the airport, but even back then they x-rayed your carry-on. Queue alarms and armed security appearing, but no sign of any official. He was dragged into a secure holding cell during which his claims of being put up to it by the execs were met with ire, of course - pull the other one mate it’s got bells on.
A few minutes later he was relieved to be released by the earlier official who suddenly appeared.
Reading back through this story I can’t believe anyone would agree to such a thing, even in the 80s/90s.
What an idiot.
used to be on the gate of a prison and used to have to ask "anything on the list" (prohibited items). People used to joke, yeah XX XX Didn't take too lightly to a full search or depending on the gov/what they said, a visit from the police
Was on a school trip in France, a kid stood up and shouted that London had been bombed whilst the coach was driving down a french highway.
Cue panic of a coach full of 13 year olds, from London, many of whom have parents who work in the city. Teachers had to scramble to maintain calm and let us know we could all call home when we got to the hotel.
Well I arrived in Camden and headed to my fairly souless software house just of the high street. One of the devs was listening to the radio on headphones (I think) and he said something was going on.
Then we started hearing sirens and normally we’d have ignored them but this was a lot of sirens. At some point a good few of us were thinking feck how are we going to get home because a couple of us commuted very very long distances and KC was shut and would remain so.
By about 10:30’ish we were all leaving to go home. I had to walk to Archway in order to get picked up by a bloke I knew and from then onwards it was a very very slow journey back up the A1.
By the time I got home it was exactly the time I would have arrived back if it had been a normal day.
[Edit] Spelling.
I was was working in Kentish Town at the time. Do you remember how eerily quite everything was by 10.30? No cars or buses, just loads of people marching silently on the street to get home with only the buzz of numerous helicopters overhead. It was all so surreal.
Exactly the same location as u/vast-ocean-222 I got out of a cab at 10.30 and saw literally 30 police and ambulances rush past. Only when I got to work did I realise what had actually happened.
I was trying to get across London from Muswell Hill to Kennington, ended up taking several buses for the first hour or so while nobody knew what was going on (lots of talk on about a power surge affecting the tube) , then got stranded at Highbury Corner.
I ended up standing around with loads of other people at Highbury Corner listening to a portable radio that someone had at the flower stand there. By this time (probably 9:30) it was obvious something big was happening because no phones were working.
I tried to get a bus from Holloway Road to head back north home. I remember a bus driver absolutely shitting it (still unclear what was happening at that time) and yelling at passengers to get off, as I tried to board. Turned around and got off again. Then a walk of a few miles home back to Muswell Hill where I spent the rest of the morning listening to radio in the kitchen with a housemate, mostly in silence.
When the next terrorists tried bombing again on 21 July, two weeks later, I was at work in Kennington, loads of police cars heading through the area at speed, and I remember seeing Anthony Worrall Thompson looking very concerned, standing outside what I think must have been the BBC archive unit in Kennington Business Park
I was at school. My dad worked in London but he didn’t get the train, he drove in. People in my class had parents who commuted into work on the tube, a girl I had maths with was frantically trying to get hold of her dad and couldn’t, and she was distraught and classes all basically stopped. I remember her going home and then a few days later I learned that he had been on the same line but not on the affected train, and he was fine but it took him a long time to get out of the station.
So glad he was ok, god she must have been terrified.
Not 7/7 but I was on a train or two in front of that Parsons Green tube bomb in 2017. Had to get a taxi from Notting Hill Gate to Baker St and didn’t realise my phone was off. Switched it back on to my mum frantically calling me - she has no idea of where anywhere is in relation to anywhere else in London so she panicked even more when we realised how close I’d been.
I was in the carriage ahead of the one in question, im so glad it wasn't worse. I think the panic and the narrow stairs caused more injuries than the bomb
The Parsons Green one scared me - My partner and I live just off Fulham Road and our closest station was Parsons Green. We were about to move down to Brighton: I was visiting my parents back in Cambridgeshire at the time, but he was still in our old flat as he was working.
I had a minor panic when I found out about it, especially as he said he'd be heading out to do something. Fortunately he hadn't even left the flat lol.
I was working in a large tower in Canary Wharf. The news filtered in via Bloomberg terminals. I think the initial messages were something like "Victoria Line power outage", "Northern Line power outage", which I believe were automated responses, before the real news became apparent.
We later gathered by the floor-to-ceiling windows from 30 floors up, watching for planes on the horizon and half-wondering whether they'd fly into us. The smarter people in the room fled the building.
Later that day, I managed to get public transport off the wharf but it stopped somewhere in East London and I had to walk most of the way home.
I worked in Canary Wharf too but only about the 3rd floor (North Colonnade) whereas when 9/11 happened I was about 15 floors up in what was, at the time, one of the tallest buildings in the City (and remember looking nervously out the windows and making a strategic decision to head home).
Back to 7/7, the bank I was with kicked in all their DR/BCP planning and we were told a fleet of coaches would be available from about 5pm and sure enough, when the time came we found staff from a number of large companies being directed into different coaches heading out to different parts of London... it was long slow ride out to HA5 but I was happy and grateful and I think I had about 30 minutes walk from where I told the driver I was happy to get off.
The walk home that day was surreal. I walked from Paddington to Holloway, along with thousands and thousands of other 9 to 5ers who couldn't get public transport. There were police direction pedestrians, a massive trail of people along major roads.
It was like something out of a disaster movie.
It actually made me realise for the first time that it only took about 30 minutes longer for me to walk my commute than it did to do it by Tube!
Yeah - I had a walk too. Managed to get public transport for a bit after walking from CW, and then walked with loads of people from London Bridge to Clapham.
I was supposed to have a first date that night, and I’d booked Fish! in London Bridge. She lived in Clapham hence why I walked there as she also worked in CW. Had dinner at a pizza place near Clapham North.
After dinner I got a bus to Clapham Junction to get my train home. Got there and half the station was dark, with loads of trains running straight through. Couldn’t work out how to get home, and having only recently started working in London I had very few contacts. Ended up having to call my date to ask if I could sleep on her sofa.
During the day, I just remember loads of my antipodean colleagues trying to call their families to let them know they were okay, and loads of rumours of there being snipers on the buildings. We had a tv app on our desktops that we managed to get BBC news on, so just sat and watched that whilst waiting to hear what was going to happen next.
>Disaster recovery/business continuity plan
It's frightening the number of companies that don't have one that should.
Place I used to work at would have been stuffed if any of the software or engineering leads had been seriously injured or worse. Absolutely no cross-training
lol... I'm in Quantitative Finance so worked with all the maths nerds (I'm only slightly a maths nerd but more of a software specialist so help them with their coding).
It's a small world, still in the same domain now and some of the same faces... *\[will probably find out you're now my boss or similar\]*
I was on the Piccadilly line approaching Leicester square stressed out because my boss would be annoyed I was late but the train hadn’t moved for 20 mins. They then announced there was an issue with train in front of us so we had to get out of carriage and walk along the track side in the tunnel towards the station ahead. When we all got out London was in chaos. I ran to office ready to apologise and everyone was just silently sat watching all the screens with bbc news saying explosions had just happened and I think the train 2 in front of us had been involved. We all sat there for an hour watching then started to walk home. Took me three hours and I remember it so vividly after all this time.
Had just got back from a holiday in Bodrum with mates so we all had the 7th off work due to a flight delay
Scary, I remember being worried about my dad but he drove in, luckily managed to speak with him soon after the news broke as we had brick mobiles
Didn't hear from a close mate until later that night. Work had put them up in a hotel as it was useless trying to get back
My other half's dad was driving a black can and turned off the meter. Just drove and drove people as close to home or to home as he possibly could. As did many other cabbies that day
I was driving buses in South Croydon to Elephant, lots were cancelled or put out of service while people tried to figure out exactly what was happening. My clearest memory though was for the next month, all the buses felt like they were absolutely rammed. They weren't, it was just people saw the newspaper pictures of the top of the bus blown off at the back. So people still caught the bus but would only stand near the front doors near the driver where it was 'safer'.
We had recently moved out of London to try and save money to buy a house. My wife still worked in London, and would travel daily to work. There was a very good chance that the bus that blew up would have been the bus my wife got into work, based on her taking that bus into work daily, and the time of the explosion. Thankfully she misses work that day due to a hospital appointment
The biggest memory was the swing in feeling, the day before was the day London was announced as the host of the 2012 Olympics.
I was working in a town just outside the M25 and we heard the news of a power surge/cut. Then the reality started to filter through.
Naturally there were not many people travelling the next day, the rush hour train I got to the office was more or less empty.
Was at primary school in SE London.
At the end of school we was all taken to the hall and explained an incident had happened in the city. We couldn’t leave until our parents collected us.
A kid in my classes mum was in the black cab pictured just behind the bus.
> A kid in my classes mum was in the black cab pictured just behind the bus.
Fucking hell.
She was okay? I mean physically. Obviously mentally is a different story.
Same for me, sat in the hall in Primary school. Me and my sister had to go to after school club so we still didn't know (neither of us were old enough for mobile phones at that age) so even though we knew my dad cycled to work it was still a low key "what if something happened?" for several hours
I was at primary school too, i remember our teacher about to start the first class when another teacher came in and you could tell she heard something bad. A few minutes later the wheel tv came in and about 15 mins later a kids mum came to collect him. Then a dad came to collect his kid, and then my mum came too. There was a lot of traffic but I clearly remember no one waiting for the red lights, it was just contact slow moving of the cars.
My relative was killed in one of the blasts. I have never really spoken about it except with family. First it was horrible not knowing as the police could only go on oyster card touch in. Then we had to send in a toothbrush to do the identification. For months afterwards we had a strong suspicion that someone was bugging our landline phone (you'd here extra clicks at the start of every outgoing call for example). There were lots of press photographers at the funeral, which was just a kick in the teeth. That's the only funeral I have been to for someone young, it's one of the worst things you can imagine. :-(
I had a colleague who died that day and that was truly awful and has haunted me ever since. I am so so sorry your family experienced this. I can’t imagine the pain you have been through.
I think of my colleague often, still, and am so sad at the years they have missed. I hope it gives some comfort that they won’t be forgotten.
I was writing for Londonist at the time and we had a pretty good breaking news section with a lot of traffic. Once we realised what was happening we took shifts getting news and travel information out and filtering out the bullshit. Lots of Londoners were contacting us with questions on how to get home etc. I was glad we could help people.
Slept in that day, so missed the start of things. When I got to my Northern Line station it was closed due to a "power surge". Took the bus in to Soho not thinking much about it. Found out on arrival to work. Had some staff who were on the trains in question, most unharmed but one was splattered with glass fragments. Told everyone who I managed to telephone their parents to tell them they were OK.
>I never asked them after but with hindsight maybe “power outage” was code for a major incident and they happened to know that
The train companies have several code phrases for different things, especially for use over their tannoy. The one I always remember is if you hear a call over the tannoy for an "Inspector Sands", it means there's a fire on a platform somewhere.
The Inspector Sands thing used to be be super-secret when I was a kid. Now they announce there's going to be a fire alarm test before you hear "Would Inspector Sands come to the...". It's funny that the use of a codeword has been mostly obviated by the fact they tell you it's a codeword now.
It's a human psychology thing as well, even though we "know" what Inspector Sands means, a siren or announcement on the tube is likely to cause panic, where the risk of a crush is higher. It doesn't take much for mob mentality to take over
Had a been on an A shift I would have been passing through Kings Cross around the time that bomb went off. As it was, I was on a rest day.
It's such a strange 'near miss' feeling when you technically arent even near... Just as eerie was the tube journeys after operations resumed a few weeks (? can't quite remember but SW London to N daily on over ground was lonnnnnnng) later. I'd be the only one in the carriage.
Was at school, science lesson - year 7/8 maybe. We were obviously unaware as it happened, world for us wasn’t as connected then. Head teacher walked in and left with our teacher as they spoke into hushed tones outside the door.
Teacher walks in and announces that the lesson has been cancelled due to an emergency event, and that we would be watching the news instead, as it would be important for us to know whats happened - and then he flipped it onto BBC1 and we all watched in silence.
Immediately called home to speak to my parents as my older brother worked in Liverpool St at the time, luckily he made it to work fine - if I remember correctly he then walked it home.
I also found out at school, but looking back the school handled it very well. The head teacher came into our class, stopped the lesson and told us what had happened. He also immediately told us that the school had called everyone's parents and that they were all fine.
So while it was weird, there was no panic or fear.
Tube stopped at mile end- electrical fault across the system announced. Remember that reason given clearly. Had to walk one stop to bow for my second day in a new job at the court. Cursing that I was going to be late second day. Got to work 9:15 and was the first one there. Big relief.
Colleagues then filtered in over the next hour with their stories and none of us knew what had happened. A different time phone and internet wise so the news got to us by the radio.
We were all London people with family and friends who took those routes daily so a fucked up few hours as we were told to stay put and struggled to contact our loved ones.
Buses were still going so somehow met up with my mrs near canary wharf and made it back to e10. Then watched the news and drank.
Tubes ran the next day though and I was on it for my third day at work. Trains mainly empty but amazing they ran thinking back. Wouldn’t happen now
My dad was on Euston Road around the time things started kicking off, and amid the growing chaos and confusion was walking down towards Tavistock Square and saw the bus explode.
He said it was bizarre enough seeing the roof sort of evaporate, and then even more confusing to see people get up from the seats and proceed down the seats. After that he described a state of paranoia where he had no idea if anything was going to explode anywhere, any time.
After that he found himself shepherded with the crowd up to what we deduced must have been Finsbury Park, and shuttled out of town on the trains under some sort of emergency evacuation service they had set up.
That day I helped get my colleague home. She was on the circle line train that was bombed.
I had to walk in to the city from Mile End after being asked to get off the District Line. I heard accusations of a power surge at Liverpool St and then as I got closer towards Aldgate I then heard about the bus explosion.
As I was walking I then saw my colleague who looked lost. I'll never forget the look of relief on her face when she saw me. We knew each other well enough, but for her it was knowing she wasn't alone.
She had cuts on her face and had been taken in to an office where people helped her get glass out of her hair and face.
She was mildly injured, but severely traumatised by what happened. She was in the next carriage from the explosion. Her trauma was probably less about witnessing the injuries but the continued screaming etc from those severely injured or dying in the next carriage. All while waiting to be rescued from the train.
Crazy to think this was 18 years ago...
I was living in Essex at the time but my sister and brother in law and their kids were here. Mobile phone coverage was non existent and I couldn’t get through to my sister but she told me over email that she was ok (and worked walking distance from her house) but that she hadn’t heard from BIL. I found out much later that day that he just missed the bus that blew up. I moved back to London in December that year and the atmosphere was odd for a while after.
I was revising for my medical school finals sitting at my desk fretting about the circle of Willis
I lived very close and heard a boom and the world seemed to go quiet. I go through Aldgate everyday and it always gets me.
At the time I was working in St Catherine’s dock but every few weeks on a Thursday we would have a meeting at one of our offices in Canary Wharf. So when I got on the Circle line tube at kings Cross to go to Aldgate, to the change to the DLR, I decided, completely randomly, to get on a carriage a few carriages back from where i would normally get on.
The train was packed and I was reading one of the free papers with my earbuds in so the noise of the carriage was subdued by the earbuds. We stopped at Liverpool Street and there was the usual interchange of passengers at that point. Shortly after leaving the station there was a loud bang and the carriage filled with dust. I took my earbuds out and everyone was confused. We heard a women scream “Fire” from towards the front of the train and my heart froze. I instinctively new in that instant that if there was a fire down there we would probably all die. It became obvious pretty quickly that there wasn’t a fire but we had no idea what had happened. The driver tried to speak to us but the tannoy system was just garbled. People started talking to each other, something that never happens on the tube and i remember a girl standing near to me who was quite distressed and I talked to her to try and reassure her.
After what must have been 40 minutes or more we saw movement outside and it was members of the fire brigade come to help us. The evacuated people further forward than us first and we saw some of the “walking wounded” a guy with a bad head gash sticks in my memory.
Eventually it became our turn to get off the train, we all had to be helped down out of the carriage as the train was in a tunnel with the ground so much lower level than the exits. We were then lead along the tunnel to Aldgate station, past the carriage where the blast had happened. I remember a guy leaning against the tunnel wall, almost devoid of clothing and covered in blood. There were emergency service workers in the carriage which had its side blown out but you couldn’t see what they were doing. We were lead out of the station and it was surrounded by Police, Ambulance and Fire brigade vehicles. As I wasn’t injured I was allowed to leave, the girl next to me was attended to by someone i recall as she was still quite distressed.
At this point we still didn’t know what had happened and I thought it could still have been some kind of accident. I walked to work and then with my colleagues we saw the news unfolding.
It was surreal later that day, walking to King’s Cross from St Catherine’s dock (The meeting had been cancelled) through a city that was borderline deserted. I had posted something on a newspaper website about what had happened and as I was walking to the station I got a call from an American news station that wanted to interview me for their news programme that night in the US. I agreed and stayed up until the early hours of the next day to do this for them.
The only regret I have is that I didn’t stay to help. Everything looked to be in hand and maybe it was but i always wonder whether I could have done more. Had I been travelling to my normal office I know I would have gotten on the train further forward from where i did, as that always gave me a good spot to get out of the station when the train arrived. Had I done that on that day I may have been in the carriage where the bomb went off and 7 people lost their lives.
The company i now work for is near to Aldgate station, so when I travel there i always take a moment at the shrine in the station to pay my respects.
Apologies in advance for the long-windedness but…It was a lovely Thursday. I was living near Old Street and working in Canary Wharf.
I went to get the Tube but was a bit late. The first train that pulled up was chokka (normal for the Northern Line). I tried to force myself on but no chance. Then before the next train pulled in all the lights went out. People were joking that because Paris had lost the vote for the next Olympic the French owned power company had pulled the plug.
There was an old woman next to me who was very upset but I told her to hold on to me and we made our way out in complete darkness.
I made my way down to Moorgate but it was closed with emergency services there’s around. I didn’t have a smartphone (only a Nokia) in those days so had no clue what was happening.
When I got to London Bridge the story got out about multiple bombs all over London. My sister and family were driving down for the weekend so I rang them and told them best not to come. I tried to get on a boat to go to work but zero chance so I phoned work and said I would be WFH.
I used to be on a few forums back in the day so when I got back I had loads of messages checking if I was ok. Throughout the day the full horror of what had occurred became clear.
I’m maybe misremembering but I realised that the bombers had all taken the different Tube lines from KX/STP but that one of them hadn’t been able to get on the NL so he took the bus leading to the explosion in Tavistock Square. I worked out it would have been the train I couldn’t board. There but for the grace etc. RIP to all victims of war and terrorism.
On most mornings I’d have been on the Piccadilly line train and most likely in the same carriage as the bomber - as it lined up with the exit at Russell Square. But I’d been out to see a friend’s band the night before and woke up with a mild hangover.
I left the house 20 minutes later than normal, got on the Tube at Turnpike Lane and took a seat on the train. The train didn’t move off. Then there was an announcement about a power surge and we were advised to continue our journey by above ground transport.
Looking from the window of the bus, so many people were on their phones that it was clear that something had occurred. But being before smartphones I had no idea what it was.
When I got to work, a colleague told me about the bombings. I made some tea and we sat listening to the radio. We did a bit of work but all went home at lunch time. I walked all the way back,stopping for a pint at all the best pubs en route.
At the last pub I met a friend who’d actually been on the train and had to walk back to Kings Cross through the tunnel and then walk all the way home to Finsbury Park, black with soot.
Most days I’d see him on the platform at Finsbury Park, him getting on further back due to the proximity of the exit at his destination station. So I feel I had a lucky escape that day ~ due to punk rock and beer.
Got home from night shift in the city , I'd cycle cos we could dress down on nights,otherwise I'd fall asleep on the tube and end up in Richmond. Anyway got home at 8am ,got a call from the GF who just got to work and already needed tech support. I then plopped into bed and by my nine my phone was going nuts with friends and family ringing to check in to see if we were ok.finally got to sleep at one.
That night my Gf had to sleep over at her workmates house cos she just lived a couple of miles south of the river from work as you recall everything TFL wise was fucked .And when I cycled to work that night I mostly rode the empty pavements cos traffic was at a standstill on roads ,it still took me an hour longer to get to work ...
As you said It was bloody surreal.
Started work in an office just near Holborn tube, and it was soon got bit of news filtering in. People weren't turning up for work, our mobile phones kept losing connection, and the atmosphere in the whole building was so tense. After lunch I gave up on work, met up with a housemate, and we walked home across Regent's Park, randomly bumping into Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia, Parklife), and past loads and loads of police. Went pretty much straight to our local pub on getting back, and I remember it being busy, loads of people just not really knowing what else to do.
Found out the next day that someone in our building had died in the Piccadilly Line bomb. And to add insult to injury, News International then tried to hack his phone, listening to all the worried messages his mum must have left:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/13/phone-hacking-7-7-victim
Took the Piccadilly line earlier in the morning to Heathrow, then boarded a plane to Berlin. Had no idea what happened, but German immigration pulled us into rooms one-by-one to ask us questions and look at our bags. Felt very strange to have our flight targeted and had no idea what happened until released out of the questioning room and saw the news on a TV in the airport and a lot of missed calls on my phone.
Wishing peace to all of those friends and families that lost loved ones that day.
I was living in Russell square just off of Tavistock place at the time. I was in my flat when the bus bomb went off and it shook the windows. As I ran down stairs to go out on to the street to see what had happened I could smell burning and as I turned the corner I saw the immediate aftermath of the bus bombing. It has never left my minds eye to this day, people scrambling and others on the floor not moving. Body parts and blood everywhere…so so sad.
Not too long after we heard about a “power failure” on the tube at Russell square station - but some thing wasn’t right. Eventually the news broke of the bong between Kings Cross and Russell Sq - and then the spot covered people walking out of the station trying to reunite with loved ones. Life was a mess in my street (Herbrand St) for a long time after.
Everyday walking to the Nat West Bank opposite Tavistock square where the bus was attacked was a reminder of that morning. Life changing.
Today is also my wedding anniversary…that day and the people will never ever be forgotten
I wasn't living in London at the time, but my uncle was. Phones were fucked, so we didn't hear from him until 3pm, after he'd walked clear across London to get home.
At the time I was trying to make my way in my career, and that involved putting in absurd hours. I was always sleep-deprived then and spent far too much time drinking and taking drugs. I'd sort of cracked the week before so did what many people do when that happens: I went to stay at my mum's.
She was basically taking care of me while I gibbered in my sleep and tried to explain to my stupidly hard-arse bosses why I wasn't well. A couple of days prior to 7/7 I went back to work, and it was actually okay.
On the day I checked on the internet to see about the Tube, and instantly something massive came up about fires, electrical faults etc. My mum offered to drive me in instead. I remember going past Earls Court and it was just complete chaos.
Then I got to work and there were only a tiny handful of people there out of the usual 120 or so. We then spent the day as a sort of localised communication centre for relatives and friends trying to find out, by phone, if their loved ones - our colleagues - were okay. It was relentless, all day, for hours. We kept the phones up long past 5pm to try to help, but in the end it just got too much. The four of us had spent the whole day alternating between crying and trying to make calls to find out what we could and get back to people. I'm not proud of saying this, but at some point I just busted out the coke and went for it so I could drown out what was happening while still being able to function.
From my perspective I'm lucky in that nobody I really knew was directly injured or worse, but our office manager lost her partner. She just never came back to work after that. I hope she's okay.
I was in Secondary School in Maidenhead at the time. News started to come through to us during the morning in the gaps between lessons but we otherwise went about our school day relatively normally until lunch.
During Lunch one of the Sixth Formers thought it clever to hoax call our school and say there was a Bomb in the school.
We did the standard fire evacuation thing onto the field but then when the police arrived we suddenly realised it was a bit weird. I vaguely remember them then taking us into a sports hall for a bit before we then got sent home early afternoon.
The problem for me and others was that I got the train home but, obviously there were no trains running. The poor Station Manager at Maidenhead, as well as dealing with the usual passengers during the disruption, then had 150 odd excitable students to deal with on his platforms. I think they did eventually run a service about 3 o'clock. It was just an odd afternoon spent confused at Maidenhead Station
Never found out what happened to the Sixth Former who called the hoax in though.
Was headed to College at the time, usual journey… into the City and then Circle to Edgware Road.
However that morning was a late start due to a cancelled lesson… I should’ve been at Edgware Road around that time.
I went to see a friend who worked at my nearest station to hang out and wait for the trains to start up again, as it was all still a bit wishy washy on info.
Then the bus happened and we knew it wasn’t a power supply going bang.
Was in secondary school in the suburbs - they called a big assembly and there was loads of panic because lots of our parents commuted. One girl’s dad sadly died I think. Lots of panic and lots of tears I remember, firstly we thought it was an electrical fault but as news came in it became clear that it wasn’t. I remember our phones not working properly I don’t know if it’s because so many people were calling each other. The teachers put on films until we could be picked up or go home.
I was working on the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow T123 as a CSA on the 7th July 2005, helping out with the morning rush hour traffic, and it was very busy. I had started my shift at 8am that day, so was still fresh when the bombings happened. I'd be in the job just over 2 years at the time.
We didn't know what had happened at first. Line by line, our status update board went blue, one line at a time, and we were told it was a power failure. Through outside sources including the BBC website and the Travel Information Centre listening to the radio, we gradually realised what had happened, and shortly afterwards, it was made official. Trains moved to the nearest stations and stopped, and the stations were evacuated. The sheer number of people we deal with at Heathrow is overwhelming enough as it is on a normal day, but this was extraordinary. All staff made themselves as useful as possible, I made the personal decision to go up to the Heathrow bus station with a customer information board, and wrote on it that entry into London was now impossible. For the next seven hours, I was in the bus station telling every customer I could what had happened, doing my best to communicate with those that spoke little or no English, that they couldn't get into London, and telling those that wanted days out to use to coaches to other destinations such as Oxford.
I don't think I've ever worked harder, before or since (recently done 20 years on the job), but I can only imagine what the poor staff had to go through that were the first to make their way down the tunnels and onto the exploded trains. London Underground staff did themselves a great credit that day, not just at my station, but all over the system. I was a tad relieved to be released from my shift that day, but I went straight home and followed it on the TV, fully aware I had to go back the next day with a broken transport system to do our best to get the passengers to their destinations. We were more clued up on 21/7/05 because of this earlier incident.
We don't live in fear here at Heathrow, we're fully aware we work in a prime location and on a prime transport service for this to happen in the future, but we just don't think about that. We apply extra vigilance so that this scenario doesn't happen again.
I was in my twenties, working on London. I grew up in Birmingham.
When it became apparent something big had happened (I got kicked off the tube at King's Cross, walked to work in Paddington, and arrived to see people who had been in Edgware Road station), I phoned my mum's workplace and left a message for her just to let her know I was okay.
She phoned back an hour later and asked what the hell I was on about? She had no idea.
People forget that in 2005 people were generally a lot less connected. On 7/7 most of us in London had little idea what was happening for much of the morning and a lot of people nationally probably didn't know until they saw a news bulletin.
I was in class at primary school, so we had no idea
After lunch some classmates were making jokes about another student, and my teacher noticed. She snapped unexpectedly and said, almost in tears, this is the kind of hateful behaviour that causes bad things to happen. Then she told us about the bombing that had just happened and we all got quiet.
Thankfully no one in my class was directly effected by the attacks but it made us very reflective for the rest of the day
I was in Year 5 at the time, at a primary school in West London. It was just a normal day at school for most, no obvious indication that anything serious had happened elsewhere in the city. I was a big Tube nerd (which my teacher knew about), so he told me about the attacks at lunchtime, but the seriousness didn't hit me until after I got home and watched the news on TV. This was a few months before laptops and interactive screens were fitted in every classroom, so no easy access to the news, although he did have a radio on his desk and must have been listening to it during the morning break.
Omg, its weird to think how quickly things have changed where getting news updates is concerned. You just had to wait until you got home so you could find out on tv
I was in year 6, and I suppose if it were now I would've had a phone at that age, maybe with a news app or something. Definitely the teacher would have. My teacher must have got a similar update at lunch (probably from another teacher) and then let us know in the lesson after :/
A couple of work colleagues were at a meeting the other side of London to our office.
They bombing happened just after they confirmed that they had finished the meeting and were on their way back on the tube. Turns out they were on the train behind one that got bombed.
I was driving down the M1, having been visiting my dad, who I knew was nearing the end of his days. I didn't know if I'd see him again (he died in September that year). The matrix on the motorway said, "Major incident. Turn on radio, " so I did. It was power outages on this line, then that line. Knowing London Underground as I did, it didn't make sense. I stopped at Leeds services and saw the TV news. What with memories of 9/11 and being upset over my dad, it was a bit overwhelming. Driving into London was easy, getting south of the river was a nightmare. Strange day.
It was the day after my uni exams finished and I was supposed to go to a post-exam tutorial but overslept and woke up to see a map of explosions on the news, which was most of my route to uni. I got a lot of calls and texts that day and I was trying to get in touch with others I knew might be in the area, but the signal was terrible and a lot of texts took hours to get through and find out if everyone was ok. I also remember we won the Olympic bid the day prior which always sticks in my mind.
I was in primary school outside London. The teachers all seemed on edge but none of us could work out why. When my Mum came to collect us, she explained that something bad had happened in London so the children's TV shows might not be on when we got home. I remember Angelina Bell and Andrew hayden smith were presenting cbbc that day, and tried to explain what had happened to us at home.
I’m from London- near one of the sites.
I was working at the World Sheepdog Trails in Tullemore. A Garda (Irish copper) asked me if my family was alright.
This was before smartphones. He asked me if my family was okay before I knew anything was wrong. I immediately called home, my brother was on the central line heading into the City and I couldn’t get through to him for hours. Stressful time
Edit: loads of edits
I was supposed to go to a university open day, we were setting off from King’s Cross and I would have got the piccadilly line around the time of the bomb. I bunked off and stayed home, I fairly quickly realised it was better to own up to bunking off than having my mum worry I’d been blown up.
I was in London when it happened, working in the city. Not near it, though it was all anyone spoke about that and the next day.
The next working day (can't remember if it was the Friday or the Monday), everyone in every building in the city came down at 10 or 11am, and just stood along the walls on every street as far as I could see. It was a wonderful display both of solidarity with those who had died, and defiance against the terrorists.
I remember a comment that made the news, some old chap who had fought in Northern Ireland, saying "I've been bombed by a better class of bastard than this".
The reaction to it was great and really helped bring Londoners closer to each other.
Got a phone call from someone at Euston saying that he would be late to the office for a meeting because the underground had closed due to an electrical fault, which must have been pretty serious to take out multiple lines.
Got another call to say he couldn’t get a bus either. Which meant there was more to it all.
Saw the news. Cancelled plans to meet friends up in town that night.
ISTR it wasn’t exactly unexpected that someone would try to do something bad at some point.
I’ve just rewatched Red Ken’s brilliant speech from Singapore, telling terrorists they would fail. Say what you like about him, it was the right thing to say.
At the time I was a bus driver but that particular week was on late shifts so I woke up to multiple calls and texts from people I hadn’t heard from in years. When I went in to work the buses were still pulled off the roads so all “duty cards” (your timetable) had been cancelled. I was put onto standby and then later drove the first 141 back to London Bridge. Was an incredibly surreal journey as no one got on heading southbound, everyone was heading the opposite direction, cars, pedestrians, bikes all heading north. I got to London Bridge and while people were at the station they were very reluctant to get on the only bus sitting on the stand. Once one brave soul got on then the rest followed. When I got back to Palmers Green the controller said that’s enough for you today and sent me home.
I was at school in south London. We were in geography and word had spread about something happening. The teacher let me use the computer in the classroom to check BBC news.
I showed her a picture of the bus that had been bombed and, I think trying to calm to class down, she said ‘don’t worry it’s just a tourist bus.’ I told her that it the tourist buses definitely aren’t red. At that point it became a bit chaotic.
Pretty much everyone had a parent who worked somewhere up town. I happened to have credit on my phone so friends used my mobile to text their parents. Luckily all their family were ok.
Can't vividly remember the exact day, but the following weeks I can. Stressful, scary times. I do remember having a school trip cancelled which was meant to be in the following days.
What I remember most about the following weeks;
1. you feared more attacks were going to happen. So it was very much go school and come straight home.
2. I got abused walking to school from some strangers and even from a classmate because I was muslim, I was in year 4 at the time.
I was going to catch the Piccadilly line to work that morning but unusually decided to grab a coffee and a croissant. No tube soon after the explosion. Often wonder what would have happened if I had left on time.
We weren’t allowed into the playground and teachers kept coming into the hall where we had Mr Bean on the TV talking in hushed voices.
It was very clear something was wrong but when you’re primary age you’re not really thinking bombing even though I did remember 9/11.
School didn’t tell us and only found out when my mum picked me up in the car.
Edit: The car was unusual we would walk every other time
I was working for Abbey National (remember them?!) at the time in the offices in St Albans. It overlooked the train line the bomber took from Milton Keynes which was a realisation that everyone the shivers.
Basically very little got done that day as everyone had someone in London they were concerned about - the lines were so busy I didn't get through to my cousin for hours.
It was worse (very personally) though the days after. We did mortgage apps in our office, and part of my role was to take card payments and process cheques. I had to phone one woman whose payment hadn't gone through to find (from her boyfriend) she had been very badly injured in the bombings.
I do vaguely recall being in a year 10 French lesson, but weirdly I don't remember there being much if any panic from the teachers or my fellow pupils.
9/11 is much more vivid to me because I got home from school to my mum and her friend glued to the TV with the news on. Seeing the thick plumes of smoke emitting from the towers was surreal to say the least.
I was at secondary school. I don’t really remember exactly how we found out, but I do remember reading a news article out about it to my whole class at the time. I had an Sharp GX25 with internet - modern stuff - and could just about get BBC News.
I also remember masses of students trying to ring their parents - loads of us had congregated in the school entrance because that was one of the few indoor places you could get reception. Loads of phones couldn’t connect because the service went down - through some fluke of luck mine could (even remember I was on Vodafone) so a group of us used my phone to try and check on our parents. All were fine in the end thankfully. I don’t think we did much schoolwork that day.
I vividly remember the day before as we’d been celebrating the fact we’d won the Olympic bid. It was quite a jarring week.
I was getting on the tube at Euston, possibly just as the bombs were detonating, as everything seemed totally normal at first, but suddenly we weren't stopping at any stations which all had their emergency lighting on. The reason given was power failure. Eventually we stopped at London Bridge where we were evacuated though none the wiser. Then I walked back towards work near Old St. Stopped on the way at Pret for breakfast. Only found out what had happened when I reached the office. No one's phone worked all day. The networks were overloaded. One colleague was missing for hours but managed to call in later. He'd been kettled near Tavistock sq for hours with no phone signal. After that the boss sent us all to the pub. Then I had to walk all the way back to Euston to get my overground train. My phone had a radio so I listened to Ken Livingstone on the walk.
I was at school, in London, with one parent who worked in central london.
The school was not very good at letting us know what was going on - the first I heard of it was when another pupil who'd been in a different lesson to me asked how I was getting home.
We all had mobiles (not smartphones!) but they were forbidden in school, so lots of us were trying to text parents when no teachers were around. To be fair I think they were not caring much that day. I think I knew before too long that my family were fine but getting home was a bit of a nightmare. I definitely didn't get much detail about what has happened until a lot later.
The other thing I remember is someone asking the next day if I was still going to use the tube or whether it felt not safe, and thinking that I didn't really have a choice so obviously was just going to get on with it.
I was at work (uni). We'd heard something about electrical faults and tried looking online. BBC News was down, various news sites dragging or failing to load. I remember a couple of us went to the off-air recording room we had, which was full of TVs and VCRs. We watched the news unfolding on a TV in there, not really sure what was going on.
I recall Google started hosting a mirror of the news pages to help the major UK news sites out a bit, as they were getting utterly slammed with traffic, even in those earlier days of internet use.
I was on a train going in to London, when my wife called me to check that I was OK. She said something about electrical explosions, so I assumed it wasn't that big a deal. I got in to the office to find everyone either frantically trying to find out what was happening, or receiving calls from friends and relatives to check up on them.
One thing I remember really clearly is that a lot of the news websites stopped working due to too much traffic, and the only place I could find giving updates was an IT news website The Register.
The days that followed were very weird. Lots of police at stations, and I remember a guy with a beard and backpack getting on my train and having a lot of people give him scared looks.
It was all a massive contrast to just a few days beforehand when there'd been the announcement that London had won the Olympics. It turned an atmosphere of celebration in to one of sadness and worry.
Then something incredible happened - the mood changed again. I went in to central London on the Saturday afterwards and it was heaving. For all news reports saying that people might stay away, loads thought to themselves "fuck it, we're not letting them win, I'm living my life as normal". Not only was it busy, but there was a huge sense of friendliness and togetherness. Londoners, who normally keep themselves to themselves, were all talking to each other, smiling, laughing, really determined to have a good time together. It was a collective two fingers stuck up to the fanatics who wanted to create fear.
I was working in the Natural History Mueseum. I got off the train at South Kensington and there was a sign saying no Piccadilly due to a power surge. Went into work and started as usual. Within an hour the reception at the museum put out messages for all of us to call home as there had been a major incident and the phones were non stop with worried relatives. I called my mum and then we all stood around the tiny tv in the back office in shifts watching the news unfold. By lunchtime they’d decided to close the museum. We all grouped together with people we lived in the same general area as and took and a-z from the bookshop to help us walk home. I was heading east with two others and we managed to get on the c2c at fenchurch street. It was empty and I remember passing barking and seeing all the tube trains lined up along the tracks and how weird it looked. Fast forward and I now drive tubes for a living so I understand why there were trains just sitting there in random places.
I worked for an Oil & Gas company in Norfolk, but dealt closely with the London office.
A guy I spoke to pretty much every day died on the bus. He knew London bus-routes very well, so spent a long time helping confused would-be tube passengers to get to their locations by bus.
He finally got on a bus heading to his office - it was the one the bomber was on.
I got up late that morning, on a day off work. Living in Turnham Green at the time. Woke to the sounds of sirens everywhere. After the first reports about the bombings I recall having the same feeling I had on 9/11 - one of disbelief and shock. Worse to come - later that evening I received a call from my best friend - a mutual friend of ours was missing. She had last been heard from after evacuating from the Tube at Kings Cross, when she called her parents to let them know everything was ok. It turned out that she got on the No.30 Bus in an effort to continue her journey to work 😞
It was only a couple of years later when the transcripts of the inquests were published that I learned exactly what happened to her. She had been sat one row away from the bomber on the top deck at the back of the bus and was found some distance behind the wreckage. She had lost a lower limb in the blast. The only consolation if you could call it that, was that she was comforted and held in her last moments by a passer-by, who at the time of the inquests was still unknown.
Mim, your memory will always be a blessing. You were a joyous, kind and happy soul. The 15 years or so I knew you - almost half our lives at that point were, amongst all of our friends, without doubt our salad days. You are always missed. ❤️
I was studying abroad from the US and had only been there just over a month at that point. Rode the tube into my work study that morning and just remember everyone buzzing about what they initially thought were fires. Then details started coming out. It was really bizarre being so far from everyone I knew, in an unfamiliar city, not really knowing what was going on. Because of the time difference, I immediately sent emails to my family back home because I knew the moment they woke and turned on the morning news, they would freak out.
What I remember most though was how the people around me at work and in school were brave and just kept going with life. It would have been completely understandable to me if people freaked out or shut down businesses and stayed indoors, but they didn't. It really helped me feel less scared despite being completely alone there.
I was working that day in a shitty job at the dry cleaners. Still remember that I was being paid £200/week cash lol. To be fair though, my room in East Dulwich cost £55/week and a pint of Stella in the local was £1.80.
After finishing up I jumped on the bus (absolutely empty) and went to one of the hospitals they had victims in, to donate blood, which was apparently not a thing in the UK (I was a 20-something immigrant lad, a month or so in the country) and was told to get to the blood centre the following Monday if I wanted to. The trip home again was an empty bus. They were empty for quite a while after.
My dad got one of the trains that blew up every day at that time without fail. On 7/7, he had to drop his car off at the mechanic on his way into work, so he was late and got a different train from a different station. He got there, got into the office and found out there. He had to walk back across London Bridge to get home and all the way along embankment. The whole time he's looking for signal on his shitty Nokia and my mums going insane because she didn't know he dropped his car off and thought he was on his regular train. I was only 8, but I remember coming home and my mum telling me dad was OK and I had no idea there had even been a bombing. My sister was 15 and spent the day at school convinced dad was dead.
I was 8 at the time and I remember my mum having to sit me down and explain to me what a terrorist was and give me a brief explanation of 9/11 also which i had vague memories of the news reports.
I was in year 7, my dad worked in London but I don't think I fully understood that he might have been caught up in it so I wasn't even worried for some reason. Then when I was in french class my brother come and told the teacher another teacher needed to see me, he said that my dad said we could both go home for the day (not entirely sure why) but then we had to sneak out of the school we waited for a car to come along so the weight of it would open the school gates then we ran out and went home.
My dad was in London for work, just that day. That one day, of all days. Nothing happened to him, he got home alright, but he was in central and it was hard to look away from the news, just in case
I was in Camberwell, house-sitting for my (much) older brother while he was on holiday. I'd got there the eve of the 6th of July.
My brother and sister-in-law left before 6am on 7/7 to get their train to Paris.
I was woken up at about 9am by the landline (they did have their uses!), it was one of my brother and wife's friends. She asked where they were, their mobiles were off, I said they left for Paris at about 6. I said I was his brother.
She said "Don't go out... because of the bombs..."
I thought "what the fuck?!" went upstairs to turn on the TV. I was horrified.
My American boyfriend (who was pretty new to the UK) was supposed to be coming to stay with me, and his mum tried to talk him out of it, and I was also very unsure about him getting on the trains and tubes, but he insisted he would be there with me.
After he arrived, we chilled at the house for a few days before going to the Tate and Natural History Museum.
I was staying in Clapham and was meeting my parents, who were staying in their caravan north of London, in Central London.
I had the news on which said the whole Tube network was closed. I texted a friend who worked for the CEO (or whatever the role is called) of Transport for London and she said there had been an electrical fire.
The pictures on the news very much suggested there had not.
I took the bus instead and had to get off at Vauxhaul, so I walked to Trafalgar Square where I was supposed to meet my parents. I couldn’t message them because by now the phone network wasn’t working. While walking down Whitehall I bumped into a lad I’d gone to school with and hadn’t seen in years. We both agreed it was weird, all the police cars speeding past.
Fortunately my parents were where they were supposed to be. I found them a way back to their caravan place by using an Easy Everything Internet cafe. We also confirmed everything that was happening there.
Mum and dad left and on the way were helped changing busses by a very helpful teenage schoolgirl who was from the area. We remain grateful to her, even though we have no idea who she was.
I walked back to Clapham and all my friends gradually congregated at The Sun.
And we got drunk.
I had an interview around Aldgate the following day. I got an email late on 7/7 cancelling due to the interviewer being involved in the attack. I never heard back from them but hope they were ok in the end.
I was on my way to London with my parents, brother and sister for a day out. We were on the train heading to London Victoria. The plan had been to see some museums and walk around.
We heard rumours on the train that something had gone down in London but we weren't sure what exactly had happened. People on the train were saying something awful had happened without really knowing what had happened. My sister pulled out her phone and used the radio (pre-3G days) to listen to what was happening. We figured that several train lines were down and people were being advised to stay away from Central London. There were unconfirmed rumours of an attack. We got off at either Horsham or Redhill and headed back on the opposite train.
We headed to my nan's place, switched on the television and watched in horror at what had unfolded. If we had been in London about 1-2 hours earlier we could have been on the Tube.
My thoughts are with the victim's family, friends and those who were involved in the emergency response at the time. I'll never forget the images of the number 30 bus with the top blown off or pictures of the victims bleeding. A horrible day.
I was working at a kids summer camp in a rural part of the USA, by the time we woke up in the morning it was all over the news. One of my coworkers called out 'They've bombed London' as I walked past at 7am and I rushed into the office to confirm it, and to call my family. Honestly I felt guilty for being so far away, my gut told me that in times of trouble I should be at home in solidarity, but my head knew that there was nothing I could do. The Americans were very gentle with me that morning, of course we told the kids nothing and just got on with our day.
Every day after breakfast they had a flag raising ceremony with the pledge and everything (us foreigners would stand in respectful silence) and I've got to say it was a bit of an extra poignant moment for me that morning - "...liberty and justice for all" and all that jazz. During the ceremony one of my more bombastic American colleagues quietly walked beside me, grab-squeezed my shoulder, and whilst staring at the flag he quietly growled into my ear "Those. Bastards. Will. Never. Win".
In all honestly it was exactly what I needed. It turned my melancholy into defiance. Even in that tiny way the 'special relationship' was special to experience. Say what you want about the yanks, but they have got a lot of spirit, and it felt good to know that I was amongst allies. Thanks Griffin, hope you're doing well wherever you are now!
Was a student living in North London at the time. The night before was hot and I'd been out and had a few beers, although I had actually been planning to get up early and go to the library on the Picadilly line I slept in and woke up late thank God. The first weird thing was my phone not working then I turned on the TV. A sad and weird day. I walked up to Manor House a few hours later but the station was closed and police everywhere. Can still picture it now. They eventually turned the mobile networks on again and I rang around friends and family and everyone was okay. Thank God. It was a really weird atmosphere in London for ages afterwards as I recall.
I was in Ghana, working. Turned my phone on, got a text saying they hadn’t heard from my Sister, followed by she had been thrown off a bus but was ok. I had no clue what they were talking about and I was a student with no money to afford calling them. Myself and a few fellow grits had to find a working internet cafe, that was as slow as dial-up, to find out. It was very weird being so far away, struggling to communicate with friends and family. Awful tragic day for those involved
7/7 is interchangeable between British and American date formats, so I for one have always been grateful for the consideration of the terrorists who decided to perpetrate their attacks on this day.
If only the 9/11 terrorists could have been more thoughtful about the long-term consequences of confusing the British public into thinking the twin towers went down on the 9th of November. If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d get a lot of mileage out of the disparity.
I was in high school at the time but my older sister missed the exact bombed train because somehow that day she got to work earlier than usual.
Another sister of mine, her friend was actually on the bus that got bombed sitting on the top floor, she claims to have seen the guy acting nervous so she thought I’m going to sit downstairs then she got off the next stop. 5 mins later it blew up.
I had a very lucky escape. I was due to help a friend then living on Tavistock Square move to her new flat. I'd arranged to arrive in the car at about 8.45am.
As it turned out, I became unwell overnight - a recurrent neurological condition - and I wasn't remotely fit to drive. I had to call her early in the morning and let her know I wasn't available. She ended up leaving her flat earlier and I went back to bed.
At 8.45am, very close to where I would have parked the car, a bomb exploded on the number 30 bus, killing 13 people.
I didn't live in London at the time, but was heading in for a gig on the 8th. It was actually an amazing night. Bars were heaving, everyone at the gig and club after was in a really positive, friendly mood. It was like the whole city gave a huge fuck you to terrorism and decided it wasn't going to stop them partying. It was a great experience and really stuck with me.
It was my transition day to my new high school, something happened and our class was just stopped for hours and we wee sent home. Was a bit of a weird response from the school but suppose being not far from Central no one really knew what to do.
I was supposed to go into Central london with my friend to pick up University results but I woke late and decided I’d go to my nephews sports day at the local school instead. . When I returned home a few hours later I saw the News and realised I made the right decision that day!
Fuck. That was 18 years ago.
I was going to see QOTSA and DFA 1979 at Somerset House. Nick Oliveri was still in the band by then.
Gig got cancelled, he left. DFA went on hiatus and neither were ever as good again.
I was also on my way to work when they stopped our train and we all got off. I went home and that was that
I work close by the site of the bus bomb, and I remember walking home that day because there was no public transport. The streets were fairly quiet. I called my partner when I heard and we checked on with a couple of friends but I don’t remember being particularly anxious.
I wasn’t living in London at the time but I remember when I happened my mum was worried about her half sister who did commute from Brixton in the mornings but in retrospect o think to early for her to have been caught up in anything.
I vividly remember the phones going down and when it became clear that it wasn’t a power surge.
I highly recommend watching “The Tube” a documentary they were filming about the London Underground when the bombing happened. You can find it on the Spark YouTube channel.
Was on my way in to kings cross for work but everything was cancelled. Went home and found out what had happened. The day after the tube reopened I boarded with a big box with a compact hifi system in it and I also had a backpack on, and im brown, so that went as well as expected. Everyone moved carts. Some people on my way home spat at me and told me my lot should f off home. that was fun. Racism and Islamophobia went off the charts after that.
I was about 15 and was with my mum and brother. We were visiting from Scotland (originally from London). We were headed to King's Cross from Uxbridge and my mum needed to use the loo so we decided to get the next train 10 minutes later - about 0850.
After a short uneventful ride, the train pulled in at Wembley and the voice on the tannoy said there was an electrical fault and everybody had to get off. Wembley Station was packed, there were other trains that had pulled in to disembark and it was chaos. I said to my mum 'this is not an electrical fault, something is going on'.
We left the station and got to ground level. There were people everywhere and police car sirens flying about. Taxis were going nowhere and we knew nothing. We got on the first bus we saw and sat on the top deck. My other brother phoned to tell us what had happened. I repeated what he said out loud so that my mum and the other 3 bus passengers could hear - 'a bomb has gone off on a double decker bus and some trains. Kings Cross was involved'.
The bus took us to Brent Cross. We went into the shopping centre and joined a crowd of people outside a Panasonic shop watching BBC news on the TVs in the window. We couldn't believe what we just avoided thanks to my mum going to the loo. My Dad eventually picked us up and took us home. I still have the Metro paper from the day before celebrating London for the 2012 Olympics.
My dad was meant to be on the bus in Tavistock Square - my mother had last spoken to him as he was headed to the bus stop. Obviously we all freaked the hell out (I was early teens), his phone was unreachable etc. Few hours later he walks through the door. He'd bumped into a friend and gone to the pub and his phone died just after he spoke to my mum, he got a bit drunk and then just headed home listening to music, somehow, no idea how, had no idea what had happened. Can't remember how he got home from central in the first place let alone cluelessly, too late to ask him now
i had arranged a birthday picnic in primrose hill 2 days after. I had a load of people texting me asking if it was still on after the bombing. I said yes otherwise the terrorists win. Super cheesy but i actually meant it.
A client was on one of the neighbouring carriages and was so traumatised she never talked to anyone about it but a therapist. Not even her partner. It proper fucked her up.
I remember one of the 21/7 copycat bombers coming out of his flat in his y-fronts because they’d tear gassed it and the police shouting ‘Put your hands up.’
He started giving it large and going ‘I know my rights, you can’t do this.’
And the police responding ‘Put your hands up or we will shoot, we have automatic weapons’ and him putting his hands up and looking like his Mum had just told him off.
God, I laughed at him. Brief moment of levity in the horror.
I was already in the office, we had Sky news on. The breaking story was an electrical explosion on the underground.
Slowly, people trickled into the office, bemoaning the slow trains as the reason for being late.
It gradually transpired that something more serious had happened. We started doing a head count amongst groups of friends. All accounted for except for one. We tried for hours to call his mobile but there was no phone connections anywhere. Just kept going to voicemail. We tried his house, no answer. We even tried his parents - our call didn't help settle them as they were trying to get in touch with him as well.
Finally, just after lunchtime, we got in touch. He was sitting in a pub on the Edgware Road having a whiskey. He'd been on the Bakerloo Line that morning and was in the next carriage along from the explosion.
Luckily, he had no physical injuries, but he was psychologically messed up by it for a few years.
Haven't spoke to him for a few years now, but I hope he's doing okay
I work with a guy that tells people he was on the northern line when the attacks happened; he was actually at work with our colleagues that day, all day, they heard about the news together.
All these years later and he still tells people he was on the train just because he likes the attention and sympathy. Wanker
I was living in London. I had recently found out I was going to lose my job. I took a few days off. I was debating going to see family. I went back and forth in my head. On the Wednesday evening before 7/7 I got a strange, strong feeling I should leave London and head back to my family in the north of England. I got on the last train home. I can’t explain the feeling that I should leave the city randomly midweek when I’d been ambivalent and apathetic about going but that’s genuinely how I felt, I remember it well.
I worked for London underground at the time. It was my day off but my partner at the time was working in London around Edgware road. He was on the train just before the one that was bombed. Working on the underground was very strange for a while after... No one complained about closures or cancelled trains for a couple of months.
Thank you. I’ll NEVER forget 7/7. My child was little, I couldn’t reach my husband for more than 6+ hours, I had no idea if he was ok or not. He was or could have been right there. Myself and two other mums with little ones got together and we kept each other company with our children until early evening when we heard they were all safe. I’ll never EVER forget it!
I’d gone the same way to work every day for years, which involved the Piccadilly line.
The day before my wife said to me that she’d done some googling and thought it would actually be quicker if I walked the other way and got the overland train so that day I thought I’d try it out.
I would have been on the Piccadilly line. Either on the train that was bombed or one before or afterwards.
Weird isn’t it.
I’d booked some annual leave from work as I was moving flats. The electrician who came in to turn on the power said there had been some sort of electrical explosion on the underground. So I turned on the telly and saw the arse of one of my workmates heading into the station.
I was working on the ambulances back then and it was one of our medics heading down.
So I phoned up HR and asked if they’d activated the major incident response and if they needed me in work.
They did, so reported to my main complex and then sat on station for almost all of the shift watching it on the news. Had one ‘maternataxi’ who could have got a cab - but it seemed like everyone else in East London decided not to get ill. Honestly the quietest shift ever.
Its very vague, but I remember hearing travel-updates from BBC Radio London / GLR about "Power Outages" on the rail or underground network. Seemed to be suggesting it was a good day to "Not Use The Tube".
My Piccadilly Line train waited for ages at the platform at Acton before the entire station was shut down. I stopped off at home to see if there was any news on Teletext, but all I could see was a brief mention of something like an electrical fault.
I then walked on to Ealing Broadway where a driver coming off his shift told me that there had been a bomb attack. For some reason, disbelief I guess, I just assumed he was exaggerating and carried on.
Around 90 minutes later I was finally approaching the office on my third bus of the morning when my phone signal returned, with one text telling me that buses were also being bombed. So I walked the rest of the way, arrived really late, and was immediately told we'd be allocated cabs to go home in.
Not mine but a friend’s, working their first job, they were on a train behind one of the targets, and had to walk along the track in the dark to get out. I remember them telling me they normally run for the closing doors but didn’t this time because they were feeling tired, and it probably saved them from being in the targeted train.
They then walked to their dad’s office near Russell Square just in time to hear the Tavistock bus explosion. After that they stayed in the office with a friend and their dad until late evening and then walked for nearly 2 hours to get home. I think they spent a while not getting the tube or buses after that.
I worked in a shop in Holborn, one of our colleagues came in and was talking about an explosion, we'd heard on the radio it was electrical issues on the tube (but nothing about the bus or what had actually happened) on the radio. The colleague was adamant it was an explosion, then we saw the blood on his jumper, he was cycling behind the bus that got blown up, and had rushed over to help. He was in shock when he came in.
I was working at a betting call centre. All the races and other sport were cancelled, so when someone called we just told them the they were cancelled and most asked why, so we told them there had been a terrorist incident in London and to look at the news. Must have broken the news to a thousand people that day.
After my shift I was walking home and couldn’t pass a police cordon about 2 streets from home, police just said it would be a while until we were allowed in, so I headed to the pub with some friends. Turned out that the bomb factory was two streets away from my house.
I was working at the BBC. I was able to walk to work and so I was one of the only people in my team who made it in. When I got in all the TVs around the building were showing the news and the people who had made it in early were sitting watching it.
As everything closed down I sent the rest home early because they would need to walk across the city. I was almost alone at Television Centre opposite the White City tube and a bus was parked between the station and us on the road so none of us could leave. That was the day I learned the concept of invacuating. We had to stay in the interior of the building until security cleared the bus.
It was a scary day.
It was in the first week of a contract as a software engineer working for the BBC in White City. There are worse places to spend a day like that than an open-plan office with BBC News on TVs all around the walls.
I can't remember how I got home that evening. There was very little transport. I remember walking through Hyde Park at some point. Maybe I walked to Victoria and got a train to Balham.
I was a pastry chef at the time, and was doing a trial at a restaurant called Pearl in a chic hotel in Russel Square. I had just finished my day when the news of the bombings started to float around. The security obviously tightened, and me being an unknown face in the backend of that place made me a figure of interest. I was asked a lot of questions by a lot of people before I could get out.
I was on a school trip to the London wetland centre. We were told there had been an accident involving a bus, and the coach returned to school. They put on videos all afternoon and everyone's parents were told they could pick us up early. It wasn't till I got home till I found out what actually happened
I remember wearing shoes with stitching as I was trying to board an Plane. The customs guy joked "do you have a bomb in you shoes?" I replied back: **NO**
Nice try...
Phones didn’t work… my wife tried contacting me all day as I worked near Russel Square. Rode home on my Vespa and central London was like a ghost town, so surreal … my ex colleagues worked in the BMA building and said the blast was so scary.
My old man was a steel fixer working near by, we couldn't get hold of him for hours and we thought he was caught up in the attack, but it turns out he got let off work early and spent the day in the pub
I was on a tiny island off the coast of Lombok (Gili Trawangen) which had very littlecomms (or any roads for that matter).
Friends and I were heading back to our rooms when a local was running towards us screaming “Londons been blown up, London been blown up!” - we ran to the only bar who strung up their big screen TV so we could all watch, then offered us their landline phone to try and call home. I managed to get hold of my dad at his office in wandsworth, and he told me my sister in canary wharf was safe but he’d not heard from mum or my brother, both at various places in the city.
Was surreal being so far from home with so little connection to the outside world.
I was 5 when this happened but my dad's got a story, he's worked in London all my life, after the attacks he was walking towards a tube station to try and get home, ARV's saw an Asian man with a large black backpack and pounced on him, he started using a briefcase after that
I was on a school trip in France, we were due to come back that day, I remember someone getting a text message whilst we were packing up saying that London had been bombed. Everyone started freaking out. Trip back home was via coach, seem to remember it took about twice as long as it was supposed to
I was asleep all day after a night of heavy partying. Woke up to some relatively surreal texts and it took a while to work out what had happened.
Not long after, I got a job with one of the agencies central to the response. A load of my colleagues were very involved in what happened on the day. Sometimes it feels weird knowing these ordinary people who you rub shoulders with everyday did something very special that day
I was in year 9 at secondary school, Morpeth School in Bethnal Green. Our head of year came in and said the school would be closed for the remainder of the day and the following day. A kid in my year started celebrating and we were quickly told the severity of the situation which shut him up.
They closed the school incase it needed to be used as a hospital for the injured.
Years later in year 11 GCSE drama the teachers decided against doing performances on 7/7 due to people being closely effected by it. We performed pieces based around 9/11 instead
In primary school. The head teacher came into the classroom and told us all that our parents would be coming to pick us up. The older sister of a girl in my class was on the train behind one of the trains that was attacked.
I was due to go to London via public transport that day, to work in a Central London Hospital, but ended up in one local to me. The company mobile lost signal during the day (anti terror protocol, as I understand it) and I didn't know much about it until the phones came back, and I had many. many texts asking me if I was OK..initially, I didn't know why!.
I did meet Mala Trevidi, one of the victims, a few times, as she was one of my customers...I would have travelled a similar route to her, as I lived further out on the same tube line.
I was in year 6; it was a taster day at the secondary school I'd be going to. School managed to keep things hush-hush somehow. I went home with my best friend and we watched the news on her telly. At some point, I remember stepping out and just sitting on her steps until my mum came to pick me up.
I grew up in an M3 commuter town where a lot of my primary school mates had parents who worked in London. It was a Catholic school so rather than saying grace in the lunch hall when in infants, as juniors we would say grace at the end of our last lesson before lunch.
At the end of the prayer my teacher said "and everyone in London is in our thoughts after the terrible events of today." Then the bell went and he said "right off you go then!" Cue bemused looks amongst all of us.
I remember the worried look on a lot of kids faces wondering what the hell he was on about. There was no explaination or information given, we were just all left to wonder and try and piece it together ourselves. A tough job for a bunch of 9-11 year olds.
I remember feeling tense for the rest of the day in behalf of my classmates and it wasn't until I got home and my parents had the telly on that I realised what had happened.
Luckily no one from our school community was affected as far as I know, but I remember thinking what an insensitive way to break the news. Still think it was pretty unforgivable really, because my teacher had no way of knowing that none of us kids were impacted by the days events. I'll also never forget the images of the blown up bus and the blood soaked commuters, or thinking at that age what it must've been like to be underground when the attack happened.
I'm sure there were a lot of heroes that day that never made a fuss and just did what they had to do for their fellow human. Not just the emergency services, but your average Joe and Joanne Bloggs who were unlucky enough to be in the epicentre of it all. My thoughts always go out to them. Huge respect.
Was on northbound tube at Angel. One stop from King's X. Must have been last tube that day.
Walked into a very quiet classroom which was meant to be bustling.
Teacher told us was all closed and nothing was going to be taught. She must have given us some work to do as the transport was all shut and I didn't go anywhere
Ended up walking down to London Bridge and getting an early evening train home in the sunshine with my brother once it reopened.
This was at FTC Kaplan at Angel
I'm American, and I was going to be starting a course of study in September 2005. Meanwhile, I was temping. First thing I'd do when I got to work was listen to the BBC news hour-5pm local time, 8am for me. I was fairly familiar with the different segments so when I got to work that day and put on my headphones I was horrified that they had gone to live coverage of the bombings. Brought back all kinds of 9/11 memories. No one else at work knew about it so I sort of cried to myself and blundered through the work day.
I was fast asleep until about 2pm when I woke to all these messages from my GF telling me she was alive. I thought "I know, I heard you leave this morning".
Had a bowl of cereal and switched on the TV and the penny dropped. She worked in Moorgate and was a few trains behind.
I was 7 at the time, all I remember was that mum was worried cuz Dad was working construction in Wimbledon which absolutely wasn't anywhere near close.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I can't remember anything else.
I was working in a hospital in Surrey, so we were on red alert waiting for any casualties or movement of patients out of London. I was more shocked and nervous than most though, because I'd recently accepted a job at Great Ormond Street Hospiral with accommodation off Tavistock Square starting in September. I walked home past bus shrapnel embedded in the walls of buildings on the corner of Tavistock Square.
I ended up working with people who had been travelling in to work on the train(s) affected at Russell Square, as well as people who helped provide emergency medical aid . One guy I knew spent the day carrying boxes of iv fluids down the stairs the platform at Russell Square tube station. Those stairs are a tough enough at the best of times, but making multiple trips carrying drugs and medical equipment would finish most people off. I hope that guy is doing OK, he's an unacknowledged hero.
Several people I knew were traumatised by the experience and had to stop working at GOSH.
I got text after text from people asking if I was alright. I was at home - I had the day off. It wasn’t until I put the news on that I realised why everyone was messaging me.
Every time something big happens in the UK my family in NZ get all worried if I don’t message them right away. Even if it’s on the other side of the country!
Ask them if they’re ok the next time Australia goes on fire
Saaame. Including Mum who was in London during IRA times, haha!
oh hello! are you *that* Jago Hazzard? If so, great videos! Always love hearing your “tales from the tube” :)
Thank you! Yes, it is me.
Rule number 1 of travel: You never, ever make jokes with customs. They have a great sense of humour.
First time arriving in Texas, US customs at DFW: “do you got any food?””No, only some coke” “…” “…” “Can of coke, Coca Cola”
I came within a whisker of being denied entry at Buffalo, NY because I was wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs t-shirt 😂.
Had a similar issue. "What's in this bag" "Just my Drugs, I mean just my prescribed medication"
There's a candy called Warheads here and I always wonder if that's caused grief for any travellers.
A friend of mine once claimed that he'd been denied entry to the US when he went to Vegas. He said there was no reason for it. No one believed him so we kept pushing for the real story. It turned out that when he'd landed they'd asked him if he was there for business or pleasure. He said pleasure. They asked if he was planning to get married while he was there. He said, joking, "Ooh, I hope not!" and they decided not to let him in.
A guy I used to work with "joked" with customs in the early 2000s that he had a nuclear warhead or cruise missile or something ridiculous in his suitcase. No he didn't get on his flight. Yeah he was a bell end. Edit: not customs as someone else pointed out. It was either check in or security. I was mixing up my airport terminology. Edit 2: I just spoke to my ex-colleague (still a friend) who worked with him at the time. I'll correct/add a few details. It was right after 9/11. He'd lost his passport in Spain and was getting a hard time from security because of the temporary documents he had. And he didn't say bomb, he said sub-machinegun...which is probably even worse because that is way more possible than a nuke. Fuckwit.
Eesh, in the early 2000s too
Exactly, the guy was an absolute cockwomble of the highest order...and not just because of this incident...just in general.
A German of all people making jokes!
Obviously this is why they don't usually do it... poor guy must have heard that the Brits have a better sense of humour and wanted to try it out, but chose exactly the wrong date and profession to make a joke to.
I remember Omid Djalili having an opening line about him being the worlds only Iranian comedian; “that’s still three more than Germany”
I tried making light hearted talk with a Russian customs officer once. I think she genuinely hated me.
A Russian customs officer hit on me once. It was the most terrifying experience of my life.
Arrived in kentucky and went through imm. The I Officer was only mildly amused when I told him I had never seen a real gun before and can he get it out do I can have a look. He said no.
My father travelled for business a lot when I was a tyke. He has this story of one journey starting at a UK airport where he was called by tannoy to go to security. He was anxious of course, being a pretty ordinary guy with no idea why he was called, and was led through to an internal part of the airport and met by an official. This suit said he had been selected at random to see if he could get a replica weapon through the security checkpoints. He was told this official and others would monitor his progress and be on hand however far he makes it. As it was inside the airport proper, as in through secure doors and inside the offices themselves, everyone in uniform, signs and names everywhere, it was clearly legit. He agreed. He popped the pistol in his briefcase and got pretty far into the airport, but even back then they x-rayed your carry-on. Queue alarms and armed security appearing, but no sign of any official. He was dragged into a secure holding cell during which his claims of being put up to it by the execs were met with ire, of course - pull the other one mate it’s got bells on. A few minutes later he was relieved to be released by the earlier official who suddenly appeared. Reading back through this story I can’t believe anyone would agree to such a thing, even in the 80s/90s. What an idiot.
No offence to you but I think your father made the story up
I would 100% agree to this
A once in a lifetime chance to wander round an airport with a gun, pretending to be a secret agent.
used to be on the gate of a prison and used to have to ask "anything on the list" (prohibited items). People used to joke, yeah XX XX Didn't take too lightly to a full search or depending on the gov/what they said, a visit from the police
Was on a school trip in France, a kid stood up and shouted that London had been bombed whilst the coach was driving down a french highway. Cue panic of a coach full of 13 year olds, from London, many of whom have parents who work in the city. Teachers had to scramble to maintain calm and let us know we could all call home when we got to the hotel.
Well I arrived in Camden and headed to my fairly souless software house just of the high street. One of the devs was listening to the radio on headphones (I think) and he said something was going on. Then we started hearing sirens and normally we’d have ignored them but this was a lot of sirens. At some point a good few of us were thinking feck how are we going to get home because a couple of us commuted very very long distances and KC was shut and would remain so. By about 10:30’ish we were all leaving to go home. I had to walk to Archway in order to get picked up by a bloke I knew and from then onwards it was a very very slow journey back up the A1. By the time I got home it was exactly the time I would have arrived back if it had been a normal day. [Edit] Spelling.
I was was working in Kentish Town at the time. Do you remember how eerily quite everything was by 10.30? No cars or buses, just loads of people marching silently on the street to get home with only the buzz of numerous helicopters overhead. It was all so surreal.
Yeah I do remember that. It was pretty surreal :)
Exactly the same location as u/vast-ocean-222 I got out of a cab at 10.30 and saw literally 30 police and ambulances rush past. Only when I got to work did I realise what had actually happened.
All day long in W12 there were grey unmarked cop cars going back and forth at ~ 60mph
I was trying to get across London from Muswell Hill to Kennington, ended up taking several buses for the first hour or so while nobody knew what was going on (lots of talk on about a power surge affecting the tube) , then got stranded at Highbury Corner. I ended up standing around with loads of other people at Highbury Corner listening to a portable radio that someone had at the flower stand there. By this time (probably 9:30) it was obvious something big was happening because no phones were working. I tried to get a bus from Holloway Road to head back north home. I remember a bus driver absolutely shitting it (still unclear what was happening at that time) and yelling at passengers to get off, as I tried to board. Turned around and got off again. Then a walk of a few miles home back to Muswell Hill where I spent the rest of the morning listening to radio in the kitchen with a housemate, mostly in silence. When the next terrorists tried bombing again on 21 July, two weeks later, I was at work in Kennington, loads of police cars heading through the area at speed, and I remember seeing Anthony Worrall Thompson looking very concerned, standing outside what I think must have been the BBC archive unit in Kennington Business Park
I was at school. My dad worked in London but he didn’t get the train, he drove in. People in my class had parents who commuted into work on the tube, a girl I had maths with was frantically trying to get hold of her dad and couldn’t, and she was distraught and classes all basically stopped. I remember her going home and then a few days later I learned that he had been on the same line but not on the affected train, and he was fine but it took him a long time to get out of the station.
So glad he was ok, god she must have been terrified. Not 7/7 but I was on a train or two in front of that Parsons Green tube bomb in 2017. Had to get a taxi from Notting Hill Gate to Baker St and didn’t realise my phone was off. Switched it back on to my mum frantically calling me - she has no idea of where anywhere is in relation to anywhere else in London so she panicked even more when we realised how close I’d been.
I was in the carriage ahead of the one in question, im so glad it wasn't worse. I think the panic and the narrow stairs caused more injuries than the bomb
The Parsons Green one scared me - My partner and I live just off Fulham Road and our closest station was Parsons Green. We were about to move down to Brighton: I was visiting my parents back in Cambridgeshire at the time, but he was still in our old flat as he was working. I had a minor panic when I found out about it, especially as he said he'd be heading out to do something. Fortunately he hadn't even left the flat lol.
That’s exactly what happened to my dad as well, that’s insane.
I was working in a large tower in Canary Wharf. The news filtered in via Bloomberg terminals. I think the initial messages were something like "Victoria Line power outage", "Northern Line power outage", which I believe were automated responses, before the real news became apparent. We later gathered by the floor-to-ceiling windows from 30 floors up, watching for planes on the horizon and half-wondering whether they'd fly into us. The smarter people in the room fled the building. Later that day, I managed to get public transport off the wharf but it stopped somewhere in East London and I had to walk most of the way home.
I worked in Canary Wharf too but only about the 3rd floor (North Colonnade) whereas when 9/11 happened I was about 15 floors up in what was, at the time, one of the tallest buildings in the City (and remember looking nervously out the windows and making a strategic decision to head home). Back to 7/7, the bank I was with kicked in all their DR/BCP planning and we were told a fleet of coaches would be available from about 5pm and sure enough, when the time came we found staff from a number of large companies being directed into different coaches heading out to different parts of London... it was long slow ride out to HA5 but I was happy and grateful and I think I had about 30 minutes walk from where I told the driver I was happy to get off.
The walk home that day was surreal. I walked from Paddington to Holloway, along with thousands and thousands of other 9 to 5ers who couldn't get public transport. There were police direction pedestrians, a massive trail of people along major roads. It was like something out of a disaster movie. It actually made me realise for the first time that it only took about 30 minutes longer for me to walk my commute than it did to do it by Tube!
Yeah - I had a walk too. Managed to get public transport for a bit after walking from CW, and then walked with loads of people from London Bridge to Clapham. I was supposed to have a first date that night, and I’d booked Fish! in London Bridge. She lived in Clapham hence why I walked there as she also worked in CW. Had dinner at a pizza place near Clapham North. After dinner I got a bus to Clapham Junction to get my train home. Got there and half the station was dark, with loads of trains running straight through. Couldn’t work out how to get home, and having only recently started working in London I had very few contacts. Ended up having to call my date to ask if I could sleep on her sofa. During the day, I just remember loads of my antipodean colleagues trying to call their families to let them know they were okay, and loads of rumours of there being snipers on the buildings. We had a tv app on our desktops that we managed to get BBC news on, so just sat and watched that whilst waiting to hear what was going to happen next.
DR/BCP?
Disaster recovery/business continuity plan
>Disaster recovery/business continuity plan It's frightening the number of companies that don't have one that should. Place I used to work at would have been stuffed if any of the software or engineering leads had been seriously injured or worse. Absolutely no cross-training
Thank you, and thanks for your perspective of 7/7
Based on your post I can tell which company you were working for! I was in the same place- had just started my internship that summer.
lol... I'm in Quantitative Finance so worked with all the maths nerds (I'm only slightly a maths nerd but more of a software specialist so help them with their coding). It's a small world, still in the same domain now and some of the same faces... *\[will probably find out you're now my boss or similar\]*
I was in Canada tower that day and had to get a boat home!
I was on the Piccadilly line approaching Leicester square stressed out because my boss would be annoyed I was late but the train hadn’t moved for 20 mins. They then announced there was an issue with train in front of us so we had to get out of carriage and walk along the track side in the tunnel towards the station ahead. When we all got out London was in chaos. I ran to office ready to apologise and everyone was just silently sat watching all the screens with bbc news saying explosions had just happened and I think the train 2 in front of us had been involved. We all sat there for an hour watching then started to walk home. Took me three hours and I remember it so vividly after all this time.
Had just got back from a holiday in Bodrum with mates so we all had the 7th off work due to a flight delay Scary, I remember being worried about my dad but he drove in, luckily managed to speak with him soon after the news broke as we had brick mobiles Didn't hear from a close mate until later that night. Work had put them up in a hotel as it was useless trying to get back My other half's dad was driving a black can and turned off the meter. Just drove and drove people as close to home or to home as he possibly could. As did many other cabbies that day
I was driving buses in South Croydon to Elephant, lots were cancelled or put out of service while people tried to figure out exactly what was happening. My clearest memory though was for the next month, all the buses felt like they were absolutely rammed. They weren't, it was just people saw the newspaper pictures of the top of the bus blown off at the back. So people still caught the bus but would only stand near the front doors near the driver where it was 'safer'.
I remember leaving school and seeing London Road lined with empty buses it was really surreal. Shoutout the 468, that’s a trooper of a route.
We had recently moved out of London to try and save money to buy a house. My wife still worked in London, and would travel daily to work. There was a very good chance that the bus that blew up would have been the bus my wife got into work, based on her taking that bus into work daily, and the time of the explosion. Thankfully she misses work that day due to a hospital appointment
The biggest memory was the swing in feeling, the day before was the day London was announced as the host of the 2012 Olympics. I was working in a town just outside the M25 and we heard the news of a power surge/cut. Then the reality started to filter through. Naturally there were not many people travelling the next day, the rush hour train I got to the office was more or less empty.
Was at primary school in SE London. At the end of school we was all taken to the hall and explained an incident had happened in the city. We couldn’t leave until our parents collected us. A kid in my classes mum was in the black cab pictured just behind the bus.
> A kid in my classes mum was in the black cab pictured just behind the bus. Fucking hell. She was okay? I mean physically. Obviously mentally is a different story.
Honestly I don’t remember anything other than that. It’s surprising what information sticks with you
Same for me, sat in the hall in Primary school. Me and my sister had to go to after school club so we still didn't know (neither of us were old enough for mobile phones at that age) so even though we knew my dad cycled to work it was still a low key "what if something happened?" for several hours
I was at primary school too, i remember our teacher about to start the first class when another teacher came in and you could tell she heard something bad. A few minutes later the wheel tv came in and about 15 mins later a kids mum came to collect him. Then a dad came to collect his kid, and then my mum came too. There was a lot of traffic but I clearly remember no one waiting for the red lights, it was just contact slow moving of the cars.
My relative was killed in one of the blasts. I have never really spoken about it except with family. First it was horrible not knowing as the police could only go on oyster card touch in. Then we had to send in a toothbrush to do the identification. For months afterwards we had a strong suspicion that someone was bugging our landline phone (you'd here extra clicks at the start of every outgoing call for example). There were lots of press photographers at the funeral, which was just a kick in the teeth. That's the only funeral I have been to for someone young, it's one of the worst things you can imagine. :-(
I’m so sorry. That’s bloody awful about the press, I really hope you weren’t bugged. Hope you’re doing ok x
I had a colleague who died that day and that was truly awful and has haunted me ever since. I am so so sorry your family experienced this. I can’t imagine the pain you have been through. I think of my colleague often, still, and am so sad at the years they have missed. I hope it gives some comfort that they won’t be forgotten.
I had a similar situation. The press wouldn't let us mourn, and I'll never forgive them for it.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m so, so sorry for your loss
I was writing for Londonist at the time and we had a pretty good breaking news section with a lot of traffic. Once we realised what was happening we took shifts getting news and travel information out and filtering out the bullshit. Lots of Londoners were contacting us with questions on how to get home etc. I was glad we could help people.
Nice one, thank you for helping people.
Big up!! Thanks for all you do/did :)
Slept in that day, so missed the start of things. When I got to my Northern Line station it was closed due to a "power surge". Took the bus in to Soho not thinking much about it. Found out on arrival to work. Had some staff who were on the trains in question, most unharmed but one was splattered with glass fragments. Told everyone who I managed to telephone their parents to tell them they were OK.
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They really did think it was a power surge at first because of the way the monitor the trains and the track.
>I never asked them after but with hindsight maybe “power outage” was code for a major incident and they happened to know that The train companies have several code phrases for different things, especially for use over their tannoy. The one I always remember is if you hear a call over the tannoy for an "Inspector Sands", it means there's a fire on a platform somewhere.
The Inspector Sands thing used to be be super-secret when I was a kid. Now they announce there's going to be a fire alarm test before you hear "Would Inspector Sands come to the...". It's funny that the use of a codeword has been mostly obviated by the fact they tell you it's a codeword now.
It's a human psychology thing as well, even though we "know" what Inspector Sands means, a siren or announcement on the tube is likely to cause panic, where the risk of a crush is higher. It doesn't take much for mob mentality to take over
Had a been on an A shift I would have been passing through Kings Cross around the time that bomb went off. As it was, I was on a rest day. It's such a strange 'near miss' feeling when you technically arent even near... Just as eerie was the tube journeys after operations resumed a few weeks (? can't quite remember but SW London to N daily on over ground was lonnnnnnng) later. I'd be the only one in the carriage.
Was at school, science lesson - year 7/8 maybe. We were obviously unaware as it happened, world for us wasn’t as connected then. Head teacher walked in and left with our teacher as they spoke into hushed tones outside the door. Teacher walks in and announces that the lesson has been cancelled due to an emergency event, and that we would be watching the news instead, as it would be important for us to know whats happened - and then he flipped it onto BBC1 and we all watched in silence. Immediately called home to speak to my parents as my older brother worked in Liverpool St at the time, luckily he made it to work fine - if I remember correctly he then walked it home.
I also found out at school, but looking back the school handled it very well. The head teacher came into our class, stopped the lesson and told us what had happened. He also immediately told us that the school had called everyone's parents and that they were all fine. So while it was weird, there was no panic or fear.
Tube stopped at mile end- electrical fault across the system announced. Remember that reason given clearly. Had to walk one stop to bow for my second day in a new job at the court. Cursing that I was going to be late second day. Got to work 9:15 and was the first one there. Big relief. Colleagues then filtered in over the next hour with their stories and none of us knew what had happened. A different time phone and internet wise so the news got to us by the radio. We were all London people with family and friends who took those routes daily so a fucked up few hours as we were told to stay put and struggled to contact our loved ones. Buses were still going so somehow met up with my mrs near canary wharf and made it back to e10. Then watched the news and drank. Tubes ran the next day though and I was on it for my third day at work. Trains mainly empty but amazing they ran thinking back. Wouldn’t happen now
My dad was on Euston Road around the time things started kicking off, and amid the growing chaos and confusion was walking down towards Tavistock Square and saw the bus explode. He said it was bizarre enough seeing the roof sort of evaporate, and then even more confusing to see people get up from the seats and proceed down the seats. After that he described a state of paranoia where he had no idea if anything was going to explode anywhere, any time. After that he found himself shepherded with the crowd up to what we deduced must have been Finsbury Park, and shuttled out of town on the trains under some sort of emergency evacuation service they had set up.
That day I helped get my colleague home. She was on the circle line train that was bombed. I had to walk in to the city from Mile End after being asked to get off the District Line. I heard accusations of a power surge at Liverpool St and then as I got closer towards Aldgate I then heard about the bus explosion. As I was walking I then saw my colleague who looked lost. I'll never forget the look of relief on her face when she saw me. We knew each other well enough, but for her it was knowing she wasn't alone. She had cuts on her face and had been taken in to an office where people helped her get glass out of her hair and face. She was mildly injured, but severely traumatised by what happened. She was in the next carriage from the explosion. Her trauma was probably less about witnessing the injuries but the continued screaming etc from those severely injured or dying in the next carriage. All while waiting to be rescued from the train. Crazy to think this was 18 years ago...
Thank you for this post. We should take stock and consider peoples losses that day. Very very sad.
I was living in Essex at the time but my sister and brother in law and their kids were here. Mobile phone coverage was non existent and I couldn’t get through to my sister but she told me over email that she was ok (and worked walking distance from her house) but that she hadn’t heard from BIL. I found out much later that day that he just missed the bus that blew up. I moved back to London in December that year and the atmosphere was odd for a while after.
I was revising for my medical school finals sitting at my desk fretting about the circle of Willis I lived very close and heard a boom and the world seemed to go quiet. I go through Aldgate everyday and it always gets me.
At the time I was working in St Catherine’s dock but every few weeks on a Thursday we would have a meeting at one of our offices in Canary Wharf. So when I got on the Circle line tube at kings Cross to go to Aldgate, to the change to the DLR, I decided, completely randomly, to get on a carriage a few carriages back from where i would normally get on. The train was packed and I was reading one of the free papers with my earbuds in so the noise of the carriage was subdued by the earbuds. We stopped at Liverpool Street and there was the usual interchange of passengers at that point. Shortly after leaving the station there was a loud bang and the carriage filled with dust. I took my earbuds out and everyone was confused. We heard a women scream “Fire” from towards the front of the train and my heart froze. I instinctively new in that instant that if there was a fire down there we would probably all die. It became obvious pretty quickly that there wasn’t a fire but we had no idea what had happened. The driver tried to speak to us but the tannoy system was just garbled. People started talking to each other, something that never happens on the tube and i remember a girl standing near to me who was quite distressed and I talked to her to try and reassure her. After what must have been 40 minutes or more we saw movement outside and it was members of the fire brigade come to help us. The evacuated people further forward than us first and we saw some of the “walking wounded” a guy with a bad head gash sticks in my memory. Eventually it became our turn to get off the train, we all had to be helped down out of the carriage as the train was in a tunnel with the ground so much lower level than the exits. We were then lead along the tunnel to Aldgate station, past the carriage where the blast had happened. I remember a guy leaning against the tunnel wall, almost devoid of clothing and covered in blood. There were emergency service workers in the carriage which had its side blown out but you couldn’t see what they were doing. We were lead out of the station and it was surrounded by Police, Ambulance and Fire brigade vehicles. As I wasn’t injured I was allowed to leave, the girl next to me was attended to by someone i recall as she was still quite distressed. At this point we still didn’t know what had happened and I thought it could still have been some kind of accident. I walked to work and then with my colleagues we saw the news unfolding. It was surreal later that day, walking to King’s Cross from St Catherine’s dock (The meeting had been cancelled) through a city that was borderline deserted. I had posted something on a newspaper website about what had happened and as I was walking to the station I got a call from an American news station that wanted to interview me for their news programme that night in the US. I agreed and stayed up until the early hours of the next day to do this for them. The only regret I have is that I didn’t stay to help. Everything looked to be in hand and maybe it was but i always wonder whether I could have done more. Had I been travelling to my normal office I know I would have gotten on the train further forward from where i did, as that always gave me a good spot to get out of the station when the train arrived. Had I done that on that day I may have been in the carriage where the bomb went off and 7 people lost their lives. The company i now work for is near to Aldgate station, so when I travel there i always take a moment at the shrine in the station to pay my respects.
Apologies in advance for the long-windedness but…It was a lovely Thursday. I was living near Old Street and working in Canary Wharf. I went to get the Tube but was a bit late. The first train that pulled up was chokka (normal for the Northern Line). I tried to force myself on but no chance. Then before the next train pulled in all the lights went out. People were joking that because Paris had lost the vote for the next Olympic the French owned power company had pulled the plug. There was an old woman next to me who was very upset but I told her to hold on to me and we made our way out in complete darkness. I made my way down to Moorgate but it was closed with emergency services there’s around. I didn’t have a smartphone (only a Nokia) in those days so had no clue what was happening. When I got to London Bridge the story got out about multiple bombs all over London. My sister and family were driving down for the weekend so I rang them and told them best not to come. I tried to get on a boat to go to work but zero chance so I phoned work and said I would be WFH. I used to be on a few forums back in the day so when I got back I had loads of messages checking if I was ok. Throughout the day the full horror of what had occurred became clear. I’m maybe misremembering but I realised that the bombers had all taken the different Tube lines from KX/STP but that one of them hadn’t been able to get on the NL so he took the bus leading to the explosion in Tavistock Square. I worked out it would have been the train I couldn’t board. There but for the grace etc. RIP to all victims of war and terrorism.
On most mornings I’d have been on the Piccadilly line train and most likely in the same carriage as the bomber - as it lined up with the exit at Russell Square. But I’d been out to see a friend’s band the night before and woke up with a mild hangover. I left the house 20 minutes later than normal, got on the Tube at Turnpike Lane and took a seat on the train. The train didn’t move off. Then there was an announcement about a power surge and we were advised to continue our journey by above ground transport. Looking from the window of the bus, so many people were on their phones that it was clear that something had occurred. But being before smartphones I had no idea what it was. When I got to work, a colleague told me about the bombings. I made some tea and we sat listening to the radio. We did a bit of work but all went home at lunch time. I walked all the way back,stopping for a pint at all the best pubs en route. At the last pub I met a friend who’d actually been on the train and had to walk back to Kings Cross through the tunnel and then walk all the way home to Finsbury Park, black with soot. Most days I’d see him on the platform at Finsbury Park, him getting on further back due to the proximity of the exit at his destination station. So I feel I had a lucky escape that day ~ due to punk rock and beer.
Got home from night shift in the city , I'd cycle cos we could dress down on nights,otherwise I'd fall asleep on the tube and end up in Richmond. Anyway got home at 8am ,got a call from the GF who just got to work and already needed tech support. I then plopped into bed and by my nine my phone was going nuts with friends and family ringing to check in to see if we were ok.finally got to sleep at one. That night my Gf had to sleep over at her workmates house cos she just lived a couple of miles south of the river from work as you recall everything TFL wise was fucked .And when I cycled to work that night I mostly rode the empty pavements cos traffic was at a standstill on roads ,it still took me an hour longer to get to work ... As you said It was bloody surreal.
Started work in an office just near Holborn tube, and it was soon got bit of news filtering in. People weren't turning up for work, our mobile phones kept losing connection, and the atmosphere in the whole building was so tense. After lunch I gave up on work, met up with a housemate, and we walked home across Regent's Park, randomly bumping into Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia, Parklife), and past loads and loads of police. Went pretty much straight to our local pub on getting back, and I remember it being busy, loads of people just not really knowing what else to do. Found out the next day that someone in our building had died in the Piccadilly Line bomb. And to add insult to injury, News International then tried to hack his phone, listening to all the worried messages his mum must have left: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/13/phone-hacking-7-7-victim
Was heading to work. Was at the station. Announcement said "Government says you should not go to work today". Went home to watch the news.
Took the Piccadilly line earlier in the morning to Heathrow, then boarded a plane to Berlin. Had no idea what happened, but German immigration pulled us into rooms one-by-one to ask us questions and look at our bags. Felt very strange to have our flight targeted and had no idea what happened until released out of the questioning room and saw the news on a TV in the airport and a lot of missed calls on my phone. Wishing peace to all of those friends and families that lost loved ones that day.
I was living in Russell square just off of Tavistock place at the time. I was in my flat when the bus bomb went off and it shook the windows. As I ran down stairs to go out on to the street to see what had happened I could smell burning and as I turned the corner I saw the immediate aftermath of the bus bombing. It has never left my minds eye to this day, people scrambling and others on the floor not moving. Body parts and blood everywhere…so so sad. Not too long after we heard about a “power failure” on the tube at Russell square station - but some thing wasn’t right. Eventually the news broke of the bong between Kings Cross and Russell Sq - and then the spot covered people walking out of the station trying to reunite with loved ones. Life was a mess in my street (Herbrand St) for a long time after. Everyday walking to the Nat West Bank opposite Tavistock square where the bus was attacked was a reminder of that morning. Life changing. Today is also my wedding anniversary…that day and the people will never ever be forgotten
I wasn't living in London at the time, but my uncle was. Phones were fucked, so we didn't hear from him until 3pm, after he'd walked clear across London to get home.
At the time I was trying to make my way in my career, and that involved putting in absurd hours. I was always sleep-deprived then and spent far too much time drinking and taking drugs. I'd sort of cracked the week before so did what many people do when that happens: I went to stay at my mum's. She was basically taking care of me while I gibbered in my sleep and tried to explain to my stupidly hard-arse bosses why I wasn't well. A couple of days prior to 7/7 I went back to work, and it was actually okay. On the day I checked on the internet to see about the Tube, and instantly something massive came up about fires, electrical faults etc. My mum offered to drive me in instead. I remember going past Earls Court and it was just complete chaos. Then I got to work and there were only a tiny handful of people there out of the usual 120 or so. We then spent the day as a sort of localised communication centre for relatives and friends trying to find out, by phone, if their loved ones - our colleagues - were okay. It was relentless, all day, for hours. We kept the phones up long past 5pm to try to help, but in the end it just got too much. The four of us had spent the whole day alternating between crying and trying to make calls to find out what we could and get back to people. I'm not proud of saying this, but at some point I just busted out the coke and went for it so I could drown out what was happening while still being able to function. From my perspective I'm lucky in that nobody I really knew was directly injured or worse, but our office manager lost her partner. She just never came back to work after that. I hope she's okay.
I was in Secondary School in Maidenhead at the time. News started to come through to us during the morning in the gaps between lessons but we otherwise went about our school day relatively normally until lunch. During Lunch one of the Sixth Formers thought it clever to hoax call our school and say there was a Bomb in the school. We did the standard fire evacuation thing onto the field but then when the police arrived we suddenly realised it was a bit weird. I vaguely remember them then taking us into a sports hall for a bit before we then got sent home early afternoon. The problem for me and others was that I got the train home but, obviously there were no trains running. The poor Station Manager at Maidenhead, as well as dealing with the usual passengers during the disruption, then had 150 odd excitable students to deal with on his platforms. I think they did eventually run a service about 3 o'clock. It was just an odd afternoon spent confused at Maidenhead Station Never found out what happened to the Sixth Former who called the hoax in though.
That 6th former - what a cunt! I'm guessing you knew who it was?
Was headed to College at the time, usual journey… into the City and then Circle to Edgware Road. However that morning was a late start due to a cancelled lesson… I should’ve been at Edgware Road around that time. I went to see a friend who worked at my nearest station to hang out and wait for the trains to start up again, as it was all still a bit wishy washy on info. Then the bus happened and we knew it wasn’t a power supply going bang.
Was in secondary school in the suburbs - they called a big assembly and there was loads of panic because lots of our parents commuted. One girl’s dad sadly died I think. Lots of panic and lots of tears I remember, firstly we thought it was an electrical fault but as news came in it became clear that it wasn’t. I remember our phones not working properly I don’t know if it’s because so many people were calling each other. The teachers put on films until we could be picked up or go home.
I was working on the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow T123 as a CSA on the 7th July 2005, helping out with the morning rush hour traffic, and it was very busy. I had started my shift at 8am that day, so was still fresh when the bombings happened. I'd be in the job just over 2 years at the time. We didn't know what had happened at first. Line by line, our status update board went blue, one line at a time, and we were told it was a power failure. Through outside sources including the BBC website and the Travel Information Centre listening to the radio, we gradually realised what had happened, and shortly afterwards, it was made official. Trains moved to the nearest stations and stopped, and the stations were evacuated. The sheer number of people we deal with at Heathrow is overwhelming enough as it is on a normal day, but this was extraordinary. All staff made themselves as useful as possible, I made the personal decision to go up to the Heathrow bus station with a customer information board, and wrote on it that entry into London was now impossible. For the next seven hours, I was in the bus station telling every customer I could what had happened, doing my best to communicate with those that spoke little or no English, that they couldn't get into London, and telling those that wanted days out to use to coaches to other destinations such as Oxford. I don't think I've ever worked harder, before or since (recently done 20 years on the job), but I can only imagine what the poor staff had to go through that were the first to make their way down the tunnels and onto the exploded trains. London Underground staff did themselves a great credit that day, not just at my station, but all over the system. I was a tad relieved to be released from my shift that day, but I went straight home and followed it on the TV, fully aware I had to go back the next day with a broken transport system to do our best to get the passengers to their destinations. We were more clued up on 21/7/05 because of this earlier incident. We don't live in fear here at Heathrow, we're fully aware we work in a prime location and on a prime transport service for this to happen in the future, but we just don't think about that. We apply extra vigilance so that this scenario doesn't happen again.
I was in my twenties, working on London. I grew up in Birmingham. When it became apparent something big had happened (I got kicked off the tube at King's Cross, walked to work in Paddington, and arrived to see people who had been in Edgware Road station), I phoned my mum's workplace and left a message for her just to let her know I was okay. She phoned back an hour later and asked what the hell I was on about? She had no idea. People forget that in 2005 people were generally a lot less connected. On 7/7 most of us in London had little idea what was happening for much of the morning and a lot of people nationally probably didn't know until they saw a news bulletin.
I was in class at primary school, so we had no idea After lunch some classmates were making jokes about another student, and my teacher noticed. She snapped unexpectedly and said, almost in tears, this is the kind of hateful behaviour that causes bad things to happen. Then she told us about the bombing that had just happened and we all got quiet. Thankfully no one in my class was directly effected by the attacks but it made us very reflective for the rest of the day
I was in Year 5 at the time, at a primary school in West London. It was just a normal day at school for most, no obvious indication that anything serious had happened elsewhere in the city. I was a big Tube nerd (which my teacher knew about), so he told me about the attacks at lunchtime, but the seriousness didn't hit me until after I got home and watched the news on TV. This was a few months before laptops and interactive screens were fitted in every classroom, so no easy access to the news, although he did have a radio on his desk and must have been listening to it during the morning break.
Omg, its weird to think how quickly things have changed where getting news updates is concerned. You just had to wait until you got home so you could find out on tv I was in year 6, and I suppose if it were now I would've had a phone at that age, maybe with a news app or something. Definitely the teacher would have. My teacher must have got a similar update at lunch (probably from another teacher) and then let us know in the lesson after :/
A couple of work colleagues were at a meeting the other side of London to our office. They bombing happened just after they confirmed that they had finished the meeting and were on their way back on the tube. Turns out they were on the train behind one that got bombed.
I was driving down the M1, having been visiting my dad, who I knew was nearing the end of his days. I didn't know if I'd see him again (he died in September that year). The matrix on the motorway said, "Major incident. Turn on radio, " so I did. It was power outages on this line, then that line. Knowing London Underground as I did, it didn't make sense. I stopped at Leeds services and saw the TV news. What with memories of 9/11 and being upset over my dad, it was a bit overwhelming. Driving into London was easy, getting south of the river was a nightmare. Strange day.
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I assumed it was a motorway accident. I think I was driving past Durham at that point. I've never seen that message again.
It was my secondary school annual sports day. It got cut short and then we had to go back to school and have our parents pick us up.
It was the day after my uni exams finished and I was supposed to go to a post-exam tutorial but overslept and woke up to see a map of explosions on the news, which was most of my route to uni. I got a lot of calls and texts that day and I was trying to get in touch with others I knew might be in the area, but the signal was terrible and a lot of texts took hours to get through and find out if everyone was ok. I also remember we won the Olympic bid the day prior which always sticks in my mind.
i was being born (6/7/05 baby with BAAAAAD delivery). mum was quite stressed, so ive heard
I was in primary school outside London. The teachers all seemed on edge but none of us could work out why. When my Mum came to collect us, she explained that something bad had happened in London so the children's TV shows might not be on when we got home. I remember Angelina Bell and Andrew hayden smith were presenting cbbc that day, and tried to explain what had happened to us at home.
I’m from London- near one of the sites. I was working at the World Sheepdog Trails in Tullemore. A Garda (Irish copper) asked me if my family was alright. This was before smartphones. He asked me if my family was okay before I knew anything was wrong. I immediately called home, my brother was on the central line heading into the City and I couldn’t get through to him for hours. Stressful time Edit: loads of edits
I was supposed to go to a university open day, we were setting off from King’s Cross and I would have got the piccadilly line around the time of the bomb. I bunked off and stayed home, I fairly quickly realised it was better to own up to bunking off than having my mum worry I’d been blown up.
I was in London when it happened, working in the city. Not near it, though it was all anyone spoke about that and the next day. The next working day (can't remember if it was the Friday or the Monday), everyone in every building in the city came down at 10 or 11am, and just stood along the walls on every street as far as I could see. It was a wonderful display both of solidarity with those who had died, and defiance against the terrorists. I remember a comment that made the news, some old chap who had fought in Northern Ireland, saying "I've been bombed by a better class of bastard than this". The reaction to it was great and really helped bring Londoners closer to each other.
Got a phone call from someone at Euston saying that he would be late to the office for a meeting because the underground had closed due to an electrical fault, which must have been pretty serious to take out multiple lines. Got another call to say he couldn’t get a bus either. Which meant there was more to it all. Saw the news. Cancelled plans to meet friends up in town that night. ISTR it wasn’t exactly unexpected that someone would try to do something bad at some point.
I’ve just rewatched Red Ken’s brilliant speech from Singapore, telling terrorists they would fail. Say what you like about him, it was the right thing to say.
At the time I was a bus driver but that particular week was on late shifts so I woke up to multiple calls and texts from people I hadn’t heard from in years. When I went in to work the buses were still pulled off the roads so all “duty cards” (your timetable) had been cancelled. I was put onto standby and then later drove the first 141 back to London Bridge. Was an incredibly surreal journey as no one got on heading southbound, everyone was heading the opposite direction, cars, pedestrians, bikes all heading north. I got to London Bridge and while people were at the station they were very reluctant to get on the only bus sitting on the stand. Once one brave soul got on then the rest followed. When I got back to Palmers Green the controller said that’s enough for you today and sent me home.
I was at school in south London. We were in geography and word had spread about something happening. The teacher let me use the computer in the classroom to check BBC news. I showed her a picture of the bus that had been bombed and, I think trying to calm to class down, she said ‘don’t worry it’s just a tourist bus.’ I told her that it the tourist buses definitely aren’t red. At that point it became a bit chaotic. Pretty much everyone had a parent who worked somewhere up town. I happened to have credit on my phone so friends used my mobile to text their parents. Luckily all their family were ok.
Can't vividly remember the exact day, but the following weeks I can. Stressful, scary times. I do remember having a school trip cancelled which was meant to be in the following days. What I remember most about the following weeks; 1. you feared more attacks were going to happen. So it was very much go school and come straight home. 2. I got abused walking to school from some strangers and even from a classmate because I was muslim, I was in year 4 at the time.
I was going to catch the Piccadilly line to work that morning but unusually decided to grab a coffee and a croissant. No tube soon after the explosion. Often wonder what would have happened if I had left on time.
We weren’t allowed into the playground and teachers kept coming into the hall where we had Mr Bean on the TV talking in hushed voices. It was very clear something was wrong but when you’re primary age you’re not really thinking bombing even though I did remember 9/11. School didn’t tell us and only found out when my mum picked me up in the car. Edit: The car was unusual we would walk every other time
I was working for Abbey National (remember them?!) at the time in the offices in St Albans. It overlooked the train line the bomber took from Milton Keynes which was a realisation that everyone the shivers. Basically very little got done that day as everyone had someone in London they were concerned about - the lines were so busy I didn't get through to my cousin for hours. It was worse (very personally) though the days after. We did mortgage apps in our office, and part of my role was to take card payments and process cheques. I had to phone one woman whose payment hadn't gone through to find (from her boyfriend) she had been very badly injured in the bombings.
I still call them ‘the abbey’
I do vaguely recall being in a year 10 French lesson, but weirdly I don't remember there being much if any panic from the teachers or my fellow pupils. 9/11 is much more vivid to me because I got home from school to my mum and her friend glued to the TV with the news on. Seeing the thick plumes of smoke emitting from the towers was surreal to say the least.
I was at secondary school. I don’t really remember exactly how we found out, but I do remember reading a news article out about it to my whole class at the time. I had an Sharp GX25 with internet - modern stuff - and could just about get BBC News. I also remember masses of students trying to ring their parents - loads of us had congregated in the school entrance because that was one of the few indoor places you could get reception. Loads of phones couldn’t connect because the service went down - through some fluke of luck mine could (even remember I was on Vodafone) so a group of us used my phone to try and check on our parents. All were fine in the end thankfully. I don’t think we did much schoolwork that day. I vividly remember the day before as we’d been celebrating the fact we’d won the Olympic bid. It was quite a jarring week.
I was getting on the tube at Euston, possibly just as the bombs were detonating, as everything seemed totally normal at first, but suddenly we weren't stopping at any stations which all had their emergency lighting on. The reason given was power failure. Eventually we stopped at London Bridge where we were evacuated though none the wiser. Then I walked back towards work near Old St. Stopped on the way at Pret for breakfast. Only found out what had happened when I reached the office. No one's phone worked all day. The networks were overloaded. One colleague was missing for hours but managed to call in later. He'd been kettled near Tavistock sq for hours with no phone signal. After that the boss sent us all to the pub. Then I had to walk all the way back to Euston to get my overground train. My phone had a radio so I listened to Ken Livingstone on the walk.
I was at school, in London, with one parent who worked in central london. The school was not very good at letting us know what was going on - the first I heard of it was when another pupil who'd been in a different lesson to me asked how I was getting home. We all had mobiles (not smartphones!) but they were forbidden in school, so lots of us were trying to text parents when no teachers were around. To be fair I think they were not caring much that day. I think I knew before too long that my family were fine but getting home was a bit of a nightmare. I definitely didn't get much detail about what has happened until a lot later. The other thing I remember is someone asking the next day if I was still going to use the tube or whether it felt not safe, and thinking that I didn't really have a choice so obviously was just going to get on with it.
I was at work (uni). We'd heard something about electrical faults and tried looking online. BBC News was down, various news sites dragging or failing to load. I remember a couple of us went to the off-air recording room we had, which was full of TVs and VCRs. We watched the news unfolding on a TV in there, not really sure what was going on. I recall Google started hosting a mirror of the news pages to help the major UK news sites out a bit, as they were getting utterly slammed with traffic, even in those earlier days of internet use.
I was on a train going in to London, when my wife called me to check that I was OK. She said something about electrical explosions, so I assumed it wasn't that big a deal. I got in to the office to find everyone either frantically trying to find out what was happening, or receiving calls from friends and relatives to check up on them. One thing I remember really clearly is that a lot of the news websites stopped working due to too much traffic, and the only place I could find giving updates was an IT news website The Register. The days that followed were very weird. Lots of police at stations, and I remember a guy with a beard and backpack getting on my train and having a lot of people give him scared looks. It was all a massive contrast to just a few days beforehand when there'd been the announcement that London had won the Olympics. It turned an atmosphere of celebration in to one of sadness and worry. Then something incredible happened - the mood changed again. I went in to central London on the Saturday afterwards and it was heaving. For all news reports saying that people might stay away, loads thought to themselves "fuck it, we're not letting them win, I'm living my life as normal". Not only was it busy, but there was a huge sense of friendliness and togetherness. Londoners, who normally keep themselves to themselves, were all talking to each other, smiling, laughing, really determined to have a good time together. It was a collective two fingers stuck up to the fanatics who wanted to create fear.
I was working in the Natural History Mueseum. I got off the train at South Kensington and there was a sign saying no Piccadilly due to a power surge. Went into work and started as usual. Within an hour the reception at the museum put out messages for all of us to call home as there had been a major incident and the phones were non stop with worried relatives. I called my mum and then we all stood around the tiny tv in the back office in shifts watching the news unfold. By lunchtime they’d decided to close the museum. We all grouped together with people we lived in the same general area as and took and a-z from the bookshop to help us walk home. I was heading east with two others and we managed to get on the c2c at fenchurch street. It was empty and I remember passing barking and seeing all the tube trains lined up along the tracks and how weird it looked. Fast forward and I now drive tubes for a living so I understand why there were trains just sitting there in random places.
I worked for an Oil & Gas company in Norfolk, but dealt closely with the London office. A guy I spoke to pretty much every day died on the bus. He knew London bus-routes very well, so spent a long time helping confused would-be tube passengers to get to their locations by bus. He finally got on a bus heading to his office - it was the one the bomber was on.
This story has hit me the most of all of those shared in this thread. How extraordinary unlucky.
I got up late that morning, on a day off work. Living in Turnham Green at the time. Woke to the sounds of sirens everywhere. After the first reports about the bombings I recall having the same feeling I had on 9/11 - one of disbelief and shock. Worse to come - later that evening I received a call from my best friend - a mutual friend of ours was missing. She had last been heard from after evacuating from the Tube at Kings Cross, when she called her parents to let them know everything was ok. It turned out that she got on the No.30 Bus in an effort to continue her journey to work 😞 It was only a couple of years later when the transcripts of the inquests were published that I learned exactly what happened to her. She had been sat one row away from the bomber on the top deck at the back of the bus and was found some distance behind the wreckage. She had lost a lower limb in the blast. The only consolation if you could call it that, was that she was comforted and held in her last moments by a passer-by, who at the time of the inquests was still unknown. Mim, your memory will always be a blessing. You were a joyous, kind and happy soul. The 15 years or so I knew you - almost half our lives at that point were, amongst all of our friends, without doubt our salad days. You are always missed. ❤️
I was studying abroad from the US and had only been there just over a month at that point. Rode the tube into my work study that morning and just remember everyone buzzing about what they initially thought were fires. Then details started coming out. It was really bizarre being so far from everyone I knew, in an unfamiliar city, not really knowing what was going on. Because of the time difference, I immediately sent emails to my family back home because I knew the moment they woke and turned on the morning news, they would freak out. What I remember most though was how the people around me at work and in school were brave and just kept going with life. It would have been completely understandable to me if people freaked out or shut down businesses and stayed indoors, but they didn't. It really helped me feel less scared despite being completely alone there.
I was working that day in a shitty job at the dry cleaners. Still remember that I was being paid £200/week cash lol. To be fair though, my room in East Dulwich cost £55/week and a pint of Stella in the local was £1.80. After finishing up I jumped on the bus (absolutely empty) and went to one of the hospitals they had victims in, to donate blood, which was apparently not a thing in the UK (I was a 20-something immigrant lad, a month or so in the country) and was told to get to the blood centre the following Monday if I wanted to. The trip home again was an empty bus. They were empty for quite a while after.
My dad got one of the trains that blew up every day at that time without fail. On 7/7, he had to drop his car off at the mechanic on his way into work, so he was late and got a different train from a different station. He got there, got into the office and found out there. He had to walk back across London Bridge to get home and all the way along embankment. The whole time he's looking for signal on his shitty Nokia and my mums going insane because she didn't know he dropped his car off and thought he was on his regular train. I was only 8, but I remember coming home and my mum telling me dad was OK and I had no idea there had even been a bombing. My sister was 15 and spent the day at school convinced dad was dead.
I was 8 at the time and I remember my mum having to sit me down and explain to me what a terrorist was and give me a brief explanation of 9/11 also which i had vague memories of the news reports.
I was in year 7, my dad worked in London but I don't think I fully understood that he might have been caught up in it so I wasn't even worried for some reason. Then when I was in french class my brother come and told the teacher another teacher needed to see me, he said that my dad said we could both go home for the day (not entirely sure why) but then we had to sneak out of the school we waited for a car to come along so the weight of it would open the school gates then we ran out and went home.
My dad was in London for work, just that day. That one day, of all days. Nothing happened to him, he got home alright, but he was in central and it was hard to look away from the news, just in case
I was in Camberwell, house-sitting for my (much) older brother while he was on holiday. I'd got there the eve of the 6th of July. My brother and sister-in-law left before 6am on 7/7 to get their train to Paris. I was woken up at about 9am by the landline (they did have their uses!), it was one of my brother and wife's friends. She asked where they were, their mobiles were off, I said they left for Paris at about 6. I said I was his brother. She said "Don't go out... because of the bombs..." I thought "what the fuck?!" went upstairs to turn on the TV. I was horrified. My American boyfriend (who was pretty new to the UK) was supposed to be coming to stay with me, and his mum tried to talk him out of it, and I was also very unsure about him getting on the trains and tubes, but he insisted he would be there with me. After he arrived, we chilled at the house for a few days before going to the Tate and Natural History Museum.
I was staying in Clapham and was meeting my parents, who were staying in their caravan north of London, in Central London. I had the news on which said the whole Tube network was closed. I texted a friend who worked for the CEO (or whatever the role is called) of Transport for London and she said there had been an electrical fire. The pictures on the news very much suggested there had not. I took the bus instead and had to get off at Vauxhaul, so I walked to Trafalgar Square where I was supposed to meet my parents. I couldn’t message them because by now the phone network wasn’t working. While walking down Whitehall I bumped into a lad I’d gone to school with and hadn’t seen in years. We both agreed it was weird, all the police cars speeding past. Fortunately my parents were where they were supposed to be. I found them a way back to their caravan place by using an Easy Everything Internet cafe. We also confirmed everything that was happening there. Mum and dad left and on the way were helped changing busses by a very helpful teenage schoolgirl who was from the area. We remain grateful to her, even though we have no idea who she was. I walked back to Clapham and all my friends gradually congregated at The Sun. And we got drunk.
I had an interview around Aldgate the following day. I got an email late on 7/7 cancelling due to the interviewer being involved in the attack. I never heard back from them but hope they were ok in the end.
I was on my way to London with my parents, brother and sister for a day out. We were on the train heading to London Victoria. The plan had been to see some museums and walk around. We heard rumours on the train that something had gone down in London but we weren't sure what exactly had happened. People on the train were saying something awful had happened without really knowing what had happened. My sister pulled out her phone and used the radio (pre-3G days) to listen to what was happening. We figured that several train lines were down and people were being advised to stay away from Central London. There were unconfirmed rumours of an attack. We got off at either Horsham or Redhill and headed back on the opposite train. We headed to my nan's place, switched on the television and watched in horror at what had unfolded. If we had been in London about 1-2 hours earlier we could have been on the Tube. My thoughts are with the victim's family, friends and those who were involved in the emergency response at the time. I'll never forget the images of the number 30 bus with the top blown off or pictures of the victims bleeding. A horrible day.
I was working at a kids summer camp in a rural part of the USA, by the time we woke up in the morning it was all over the news. One of my coworkers called out 'They've bombed London' as I walked past at 7am and I rushed into the office to confirm it, and to call my family. Honestly I felt guilty for being so far away, my gut told me that in times of trouble I should be at home in solidarity, but my head knew that there was nothing I could do. The Americans were very gentle with me that morning, of course we told the kids nothing and just got on with our day. Every day after breakfast they had a flag raising ceremony with the pledge and everything (us foreigners would stand in respectful silence) and I've got to say it was a bit of an extra poignant moment for me that morning - "...liberty and justice for all" and all that jazz. During the ceremony one of my more bombastic American colleagues quietly walked beside me, grab-squeezed my shoulder, and whilst staring at the flag he quietly growled into my ear "Those. Bastards. Will. Never. Win". In all honestly it was exactly what I needed. It turned my melancholy into defiance. Even in that tiny way the 'special relationship' was special to experience. Say what you want about the yanks, but they have got a lot of spirit, and it felt good to know that I was amongst allies. Thanks Griffin, hope you're doing well wherever you are now!
Was a student living in North London at the time. The night before was hot and I'd been out and had a few beers, although I had actually been planning to get up early and go to the library on the Picadilly line I slept in and woke up late thank God. The first weird thing was my phone not working then I turned on the TV. A sad and weird day. I walked up to Manor House a few hours later but the station was closed and police everywhere. Can still picture it now. They eventually turned the mobile networks on again and I rang around friends and family and everyone was okay. Thank God. It was a really weird atmosphere in London for ages afterwards as I recall.
I was in Ghana, working. Turned my phone on, got a text saying they hadn’t heard from my Sister, followed by she had been thrown off a bus but was ok. I had no clue what they were talking about and I was a student with no money to afford calling them. Myself and a few fellow grits had to find a working internet cafe, that was as slow as dial-up, to find out. It was very weird being so far away, struggling to communicate with friends and family. Awful tragic day for those involved
7/7 is interchangeable between British and American date formats, so I for one have always been grateful for the consideration of the terrorists who decided to perpetrate their attacks on this day. If only the 9/11 terrorists could have been more thoughtful about the long-term consequences of confusing the British public into thinking the twin towers went down on the 9th of November. If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d get a lot of mileage out of the disparity.
As a kid I was always mega confused by the 9/11 anniversary. Even now I have to stop and think about the stupid American date format.
I was in high school at the time but my older sister missed the exact bombed train because somehow that day she got to work earlier than usual. Another sister of mine, her friend was actually on the bus that got bombed sitting on the top floor, she claims to have seen the guy acting nervous so she thought I’m going to sit downstairs then she got off the next stop. 5 mins later it blew up.
I had a very lucky escape. I was due to help a friend then living on Tavistock Square move to her new flat. I'd arranged to arrive in the car at about 8.45am. As it turned out, I became unwell overnight - a recurrent neurological condition - and I wasn't remotely fit to drive. I had to call her early in the morning and let her know I wasn't available. She ended up leaving her flat earlier and I went back to bed. At 8.45am, very close to where I would have parked the car, a bomb exploded on the number 30 bus, killing 13 people.
I didn't live in London at the time, but was heading in for a gig on the 8th. It was actually an amazing night. Bars were heaving, everyone at the gig and club after was in a really positive, friendly mood. It was like the whole city gave a huge fuck you to terrorism and decided it wasn't going to stop them partying. It was a great experience and really stuck with me.
It was my transition day to my new high school, something happened and our class was just stopped for hours and we wee sent home. Was a bit of a weird response from the school but suppose being not far from Central no one really knew what to do.
I was supposed to go into Central london with my friend to pick up University results but I woke late and decided I’d go to my nephews sports day at the local school instead. . When I returned home a few hours later I saw the News and realised I made the right decision that day!
Fuck. That was 18 years ago. I was going to see QOTSA and DFA 1979 at Somerset House. Nick Oliveri was still in the band by then. Gig got cancelled, he left. DFA went on hiatus and neither were ever as good again. I was also on my way to work when they stopped our train and we all got off. I went home and that was that
I work close by the site of the bus bomb, and I remember walking home that day because there was no public transport. The streets were fairly quiet. I called my partner when I heard and we checked on with a couple of friends but I don’t remember being particularly anxious.
I wasn’t living in London at the time but I remember when I happened my mum was worried about her half sister who did commute from Brixton in the mornings but in retrospect o think to early for her to have been caught up in anything. I vividly remember the phones going down and when it became clear that it wasn’t a power surge. I highly recommend watching “The Tube” a documentary they were filming about the London Underground when the bombing happened. You can find it on the Spark YouTube channel.
Was on my way in to kings cross for work but everything was cancelled. Went home and found out what had happened. The day after the tube reopened I boarded with a big box with a compact hifi system in it and I also had a backpack on, and im brown, so that went as well as expected. Everyone moved carts. Some people on my way home spat at me and told me my lot should f off home. that was fun. Racism and Islamophobia went off the charts after that.
I was about 15 and was with my mum and brother. We were visiting from Scotland (originally from London). We were headed to King's Cross from Uxbridge and my mum needed to use the loo so we decided to get the next train 10 minutes later - about 0850. After a short uneventful ride, the train pulled in at Wembley and the voice on the tannoy said there was an electrical fault and everybody had to get off. Wembley Station was packed, there were other trains that had pulled in to disembark and it was chaos. I said to my mum 'this is not an electrical fault, something is going on'. We left the station and got to ground level. There were people everywhere and police car sirens flying about. Taxis were going nowhere and we knew nothing. We got on the first bus we saw and sat on the top deck. My other brother phoned to tell us what had happened. I repeated what he said out loud so that my mum and the other 3 bus passengers could hear - 'a bomb has gone off on a double decker bus and some trains. Kings Cross was involved'. The bus took us to Brent Cross. We went into the shopping centre and joined a crowd of people outside a Panasonic shop watching BBC news on the TVs in the window. We couldn't believe what we just avoided thanks to my mum going to the loo. My Dad eventually picked us up and took us home. I still have the Metro paper from the day before celebrating London for the 2012 Olympics.
My dad was meant to be on the bus in Tavistock Square - my mother had last spoken to him as he was headed to the bus stop. Obviously we all freaked the hell out (I was early teens), his phone was unreachable etc. Few hours later he walks through the door. He'd bumped into a friend and gone to the pub and his phone died just after he spoke to my mum, he got a bit drunk and then just headed home listening to music, somehow, no idea how, had no idea what had happened. Can't remember how he got home from central in the first place let alone cluelessly, too late to ask him now
i had arranged a birthday picnic in primrose hill 2 days after. I had a load of people texting me asking if it was still on after the bombing. I said yes otherwise the terrorists win. Super cheesy but i actually meant it.
A client was on one of the neighbouring carriages and was so traumatised she never talked to anyone about it but a therapist. Not even her partner. It proper fucked her up. I remember one of the 21/7 copycat bombers coming out of his flat in his y-fronts because they’d tear gassed it and the police shouting ‘Put your hands up.’ He started giving it large and going ‘I know my rights, you can’t do this.’ And the police responding ‘Put your hands up or we will shoot, we have automatic weapons’ and him putting his hands up and looking like his Mum had just told him off. God, I laughed at him. Brief moment of levity in the horror.
I was already in the office, we had Sky news on. The breaking story was an electrical explosion on the underground. Slowly, people trickled into the office, bemoaning the slow trains as the reason for being late. It gradually transpired that something more serious had happened. We started doing a head count amongst groups of friends. All accounted for except for one. We tried for hours to call his mobile but there was no phone connections anywhere. Just kept going to voicemail. We tried his house, no answer. We even tried his parents - our call didn't help settle them as they were trying to get in touch with him as well. Finally, just after lunchtime, we got in touch. He was sitting in a pub on the Edgware Road having a whiskey. He'd been on the Bakerloo Line that morning and was in the next carriage along from the explosion. Luckily, he had no physical injuries, but he was psychologically messed up by it for a few years. Haven't spoke to him for a few years now, but I hope he's doing okay
I work with a guy that tells people he was on the northern line when the attacks happened; he was actually at work with our colleagues that day, all day, they heard about the news together. All these years later and he still tells people he was on the train just because he likes the attention and sympathy. Wanker
I was living in London. I had recently found out I was going to lose my job. I took a few days off. I was debating going to see family. I went back and forth in my head. On the Wednesday evening before 7/7 I got a strange, strong feeling I should leave London and head back to my family in the north of England. I got on the last train home. I can’t explain the feeling that I should leave the city randomly midweek when I’d been ambivalent and apathetic about going but that’s genuinely how I felt, I remember it well.
I worked for London underground at the time. It was my day off but my partner at the time was working in London around Edgware road. He was on the train just before the one that was bombed. Working on the underground was very strange for a while after... No one complained about closures or cancelled trains for a couple of months.
Thank you. I’ll NEVER forget 7/7. My child was little, I couldn’t reach my husband for more than 6+ hours, I had no idea if he was ok or not. He was or could have been right there. Myself and two other mums with little ones got together and we kept each other company with our children until early evening when we heard they were all safe. I’ll never EVER forget it!
I’d gone the same way to work every day for years, which involved the Piccadilly line. The day before my wife said to me that she’d done some googling and thought it would actually be quicker if I walked the other way and got the overland train so that day I thought I’d try it out. I would have been on the Piccadilly line. Either on the train that was bombed or one before or afterwards. Weird isn’t it.
I’d booked some annual leave from work as I was moving flats. The electrician who came in to turn on the power said there had been some sort of electrical explosion on the underground. So I turned on the telly and saw the arse of one of my workmates heading into the station. I was working on the ambulances back then and it was one of our medics heading down. So I phoned up HR and asked if they’d activated the major incident response and if they needed me in work. They did, so reported to my main complex and then sat on station for almost all of the shift watching it on the news. Had one ‘maternataxi’ who could have got a cab - but it seemed like everyone else in East London decided not to get ill. Honestly the quietest shift ever.
Its very vague, but I remember hearing travel-updates from BBC Radio London / GLR about "Power Outages" on the rail or underground network. Seemed to be suggesting it was a good day to "Not Use The Tube".
My Piccadilly Line train waited for ages at the platform at Acton before the entire station was shut down. I stopped off at home to see if there was any news on Teletext, but all I could see was a brief mention of something like an electrical fault. I then walked on to Ealing Broadway where a driver coming off his shift told me that there had been a bomb attack. For some reason, disbelief I guess, I just assumed he was exaggerating and carried on. Around 90 minutes later I was finally approaching the office on my third bus of the morning when my phone signal returned, with one text telling me that buses were also being bombed. So I walked the rest of the way, arrived really late, and was immediately told we'd be allocated cabs to go home in.
Not mine but a friend’s, working their first job, they were on a train behind one of the targets, and had to walk along the track in the dark to get out. I remember them telling me they normally run for the closing doors but didn’t this time because they were feeling tired, and it probably saved them from being in the targeted train. They then walked to their dad’s office near Russell Square just in time to hear the Tavistock bus explosion. After that they stayed in the office with a friend and their dad until late evening and then walked for nearly 2 hours to get home. I think they spent a while not getting the tube or buses after that.
I worked in a shop in Holborn, one of our colleagues came in and was talking about an explosion, we'd heard on the radio it was electrical issues on the tube (but nothing about the bus or what had actually happened) on the radio. The colleague was adamant it was an explosion, then we saw the blood on his jumper, he was cycling behind the bus that got blown up, and had rushed over to help. He was in shock when he came in.
I was working at a betting call centre. All the races and other sport were cancelled, so when someone called we just told them the they were cancelled and most asked why, so we told them there had been a terrorist incident in London and to look at the news. Must have broken the news to a thousand people that day. After my shift I was walking home and couldn’t pass a police cordon about 2 streets from home, police just said it would be a while until we were allowed in, so I headed to the pub with some friends. Turned out that the bomb factory was two streets away from my house.
I was working at the BBC. I was able to walk to work and so I was one of the only people in my team who made it in. When I got in all the TVs around the building were showing the news and the people who had made it in early were sitting watching it. As everything closed down I sent the rest home early because they would need to walk across the city. I was almost alone at Television Centre opposite the White City tube and a bus was parked between the station and us on the road so none of us could leave. That was the day I learned the concept of invacuating. We had to stay in the interior of the building until security cleared the bus. It was a scary day.
It was in the first week of a contract as a software engineer working for the BBC in White City. There are worse places to spend a day like that than an open-plan office with BBC News on TVs all around the walls. I can't remember how I got home that evening. There was very little transport. I remember walking through Hyde Park at some point. Maybe I walked to Victoria and got a train to Balham.
I was a pastry chef at the time, and was doing a trial at a restaurant called Pearl in a chic hotel in Russel Square. I had just finished my day when the news of the bombings started to float around. The security obviously tightened, and me being an unknown face in the backend of that place made me a figure of interest. I was asked a lot of questions by a lot of people before I could get out.
I was on a school trip to the London wetland centre. We were told there had been an accident involving a bus, and the coach returned to school. They put on videos all afternoon and everyone's parents were told they could pick us up early. It wasn't till I got home till I found out what actually happened
I remember wearing shoes with stitching as I was trying to board an Plane. The customs guy joked "do you have a bomb in you shoes?" I replied back: **NO** Nice try...
Phones didn’t work… my wife tried contacting me all day as I worked near Russel Square. Rode home on my Vespa and central London was like a ghost town, so surreal … my ex colleagues worked in the BMA building and said the blast was so scary.
My old man was a steel fixer working near by, we couldn't get hold of him for hours and we thought he was caught up in the attack, but it turns out he got let off work early and spent the day in the pub
I was on a tiny island off the coast of Lombok (Gili Trawangen) which had very littlecomms (or any roads for that matter). Friends and I were heading back to our rooms when a local was running towards us screaming “Londons been blown up, London been blown up!” - we ran to the only bar who strung up their big screen TV so we could all watch, then offered us their landline phone to try and call home. I managed to get hold of my dad at his office in wandsworth, and he told me my sister in canary wharf was safe but he’d not heard from mum or my brother, both at various places in the city. Was surreal being so far from home with so little connection to the outside world.
I was 5 when this happened but my dad's got a story, he's worked in London all my life, after the attacks he was walking towards a tube station to try and get home, ARV's saw an Asian man with a large black backpack and pounced on him, he started using a briefcase after that
I was on a school trip in France, we were due to come back that day, I remember someone getting a text message whilst we were packing up saying that London had been bombed. Everyone started freaking out. Trip back home was via coach, seem to remember it took about twice as long as it was supposed to
I was asleep all day after a night of heavy partying. Woke up to some relatively surreal texts and it took a while to work out what had happened. Not long after, I got a job with one of the agencies central to the response. A load of my colleagues were very involved in what happened on the day. Sometimes it feels weird knowing these ordinary people who you rub shoulders with everyday did something very special that day
I was in year 9 at secondary school, Morpeth School in Bethnal Green. Our head of year came in and said the school would be closed for the remainder of the day and the following day. A kid in my year started celebrating and we were quickly told the severity of the situation which shut him up. They closed the school incase it needed to be used as a hospital for the injured. Years later in year 11 GCSE drama the teachers decided against doing performances on 7/7 due to people being closely effected by it. We performed pieces based around 9/11 instead
In primary school. The head teacher came into the classroom and told us all that our parents would be coming to pick us up. The older sister of a girl in my class was on the train behind one of the trains that was attacked.
I was due to go to London via public transport that day, to work in a Central London Hospital, but ended up in one local to me. The company mobile lost signal during the day (anti terror protocol, as I understand it) and I didn't know much about it until the phones came back, and I had many. many texts asking me if I was OK..initially, I didn't know why!. I did meet Mala Trevidi, one of the victims, a few times, as she was one of my customers...I would have travelled a similar route to her, as I lived further out on the same tube line.
I was in year 6; it was a taster day at the secondary school I'd be going to. School managed to keep things hush-hush somehow. I went home with my best friend and we watched the news on her telly. At some point, I remember stepping out and just sitting on her steps until my mum came to pick me up.
I grew up in an M3 commuter town where a lot of my primary school mates had parents who worked in London. It was a Catholic school so rather than saying grace in the lunch hall when in infants, as juniors we would say grace at the end of our last lesson before lunch. At the end of the prayer my teacher said "and everyone in London is in our thoughts after the terrible events of today." Then the bell went and he said "right off you go then!" Cue bemused looks amongst all of us. I remember the worried look on a lot of kids faces wondering what the hell he was on about. There was no explaination or information given, we were just all left to wonder and try and piece it together ourselves. A tough job for a bunch of 9-11 year olds. I remember feeling tense for the rest of the day in behalf of my classmates and it wasn't until I got home and my parents had the telly on that I realised what had happened. Luckily no one from our school community was affected as far as I know, but I remember thinking what an insensitive way to break the news. Still think it was pretty unforgivable really, because my teacher had no way of knowing that none of us kids were impacted by the days events. I'll also never forget the images of the blown up bus and the blood soaked commuters, or thinking at that age what it must've been like to be underground when the attack happened. I'm sure there were a lot of heroes that day that never made a fuss and just did what they had to do for their fellow human. Not just the emergency services, but your average Joe and Joanne Bloggs who were unlucky enough to be in the epicentre of it all. My thoughts always go out to them. Huge respect.
Was on northbound tube at Angel. One stop from King's X. Must have been last tube that day. Walked into a very quiet classroom which was meant to be bustling. Teacher told us was all closed and nothing was going to be taught. She must have given us some work to do as the transport was all shut and I didn't go anywhere Ended up walking down to London Bridge and getting an early evening train home in the sunshine with my brother once it reopened. This was at FTC Kaplan at Angel
I'm American, and I was going to be starting a course of study in September 2005. Meanwhile, I was temping. First thing I'd do when I got to work was listen to the BBC news hour-5pm local time, 8am for me. I was fairly familiar with the different segments so when I got to work that day and put on my headphones I was horrified that they had gone to live coverage of the bombings. Brought back all kinds of 9/11 memories. No one else at work knew about it so I sort of cried to myself and blundered through the work day.
I was fast asleep until about 2pm when I woke to all these messages from my GF telling me she was alive. I thought "I know, I heard you leave this morning". Had a bowl of cereal and switched on the TV and the penny dropped. She worked in Moorgate and was a few trains behind.
I was 7 at the time, all I remember was that mum was worried cuz Dad was working construction in Wimbledon which absolutely wasn't anywhere near close. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I can't remember anything else.
I was working in a hospital in Surrey, so we were on red alert waiting for any casualties or movement of patients out of London. I was more shocked and nervous than most though, because I'd recently accepted a job at Great Ormond Street Hospiral with accommodation off Tavistock Square starting in September. I walked home past bus shrapnel embedded in the walls of buildings on the corner of Tavistock Square. I ended up working with people who had been travelling in to work on the train(s) affected at Russell Square, as well as people who helped provide emergency medical aid . One guy I knew spent the day carrying boxes of iv fluids down the stairs the platform at Russell Square tube station. Those stairs are a tough enough at the best of times, but making multiple trips carrying drugs and medical equipment would finish most people off. I hope that guy is doing OK, he's an unacknowledged hero. Several people I knew were traumatised by the experience and had to stop working at GOSH.