BBC2 - 777: One Day In London

[SoleSource]

Are you watching?

:(

I'm still thinking about the people on the programme and those that were not but involved :( Very powerful stuff.

I remember being appalled at how much access the journos seemed to have. I went out the back entrance of the hospital to avoid them.

I am watching this now. I travelled on the circle line the previous day and i was so upset the next morning. My sister would have been travelling to work but was on holiday in Greece. It is heartbreaking to watch.

Cried throughout, especially at the final scene, the man in tears because he felt guilty for surviving. Very moving and so well made.

I'm going to watch again, very soon. So many people here near misses via a change in daily routine :( ((hugs)) to you all x

Exactly what I was thinking Sole. I was talking with a friend today about how incredible it was that no-one I knew was involved, even though everyone I knew could have been. I don't want to call it luck, but it was pure chance that some people were involved and others weren't. Heartbreaking indeed.

I was amazed at how many people I did know who knew people who were injured/involved although weirdly I was the only person from my office that was involved despite it happening at a tube station near our office.

I travelled into London that day with a friend I knew from playgroup. We parted at the mainline station and did separate journeys. She heard the Edgware Road bomb but didn't know what it was and decided to get a bus instead. She was on the bus behind the one that was bombed. The cousin of a close friend was on the bombed bus but escaped relatively uninjured. The brother of a neighbour's friend (and someone I also knew) was killed at Edgware Road.

Probably the most surprising thing was how many people were killed/injured/involved not doing their normal journey to work. If I hadn't overslept for the first and only time since I recently returned from maternity leave I would have been safely at my desk at the time the bomb that affected me went off.

The thing that came across very well in the programme is how difficult it is to actually talk about what they experienced. I had two years of counselling which helped enormously. There are only two people I know whom I've been able to talk about what I saw, one was my counsellor and the other was the lovely detective who came to my home the weekend after the bombing to take a statement.

I think that was really brought home by the woman at the end with her memos she'd written with her counsellor. When she read the one that said she wouldn't be scared of being blown up on the tube again, and could barely speak, I just cried and cried (again!) The survivors stories haven't really been heard much until now - I can imagine because, as you say, it's so hard to talk about. It must have been tough for you to watch it.

I think it's also that 'it could have been me' that every Londoner had, whether they were on the bus behind the bus that blew up, or, like me, on a tube an hour earlier than the one I 'should' have been on. I've never stopped thinking about that day completely, and this incredible programme has been on my mind ever since.

I'm glad I watched it. It's something that will never leave me and part of me will never move on from that day. Fortunately with the help I received I have put most of it behind me and continue with my life. There are plenty of people whose lives have been destroyed by the events on that day and have struggled to continue.

The day before I travelled on the circle line with ds (2 then) at around 9.00 am to pick up a bag from Baker Street Lost Property Office. Never been on the tube at that time of the morning before and never since. I remember the next day switching on the news and realising how close I had been to being on one of those trains with ds, had we gone the next day instead.

I don't think about it much though I live in London but just reading this thread made me cry and brought it back.

I've just watched this and was hoping there would be a thread on it. I feel utterly emotionally overwhelmed by it.

I don't know if its because I'm someone who connects strongly with the idea that London is my home. I am a Londoner, my family are Londoners, my children are Londoners, that is an idea that resonates with me. I feel most at home in London but I have always found anything associated with 7/7 just absolutely devastating.

I think its that about 90% of the people I know, possibly more, live and work in London. I remember at the time, every single person I spoke to felt they had experienced a near miss, or were somehow involved.

My DH works in the city, typically he took a bus from our then home to near his office on Fenchurch Street, that day he had a meeting and had taken a bus to Aldgate. We worked out he was on the train before as it was the last to successfully leave Aldgate, he ran for that train. But anyway, he made it to his meeting, they were in serious negotiations and had basically shut themselves away and turned of their phones. Apparently they knew there were transport problems because someone came in and said electrical faults on the tube, big fuss, so they ignored any news. Problem was I knew the route and time DH was supposed to be on the train and couldn't get in touch with him until gone 6pm. I had done the school run, was working at home had the news on, saw it was bombs, from the moment I couldnt get in touch with DH I was distraught. I spent the day a complete wreck, I was vomiting, couldn't stop crying I was absolutely distraught. I made my way partly by bus partly by running down to aldgate I couldn't find him and a policeman comforted me and told me to go home which in the end I did. I actually forgot I was supposed to pick the DC up. When DH came home I sat on the floor and cried and cried.

Obviously I'm aware I didn;t suffer the trauma or the loss that others have but for those hours where I convinced myself he was dead it was just desperate.I know so many other stories of people being caught up in it I do feel as connected to the event.

I think the programme was excellent, I obviously cried throughout. I found the part about the guy closing the mans eyes and saying a prayer extraordinarily moving. But also the survivors guilt of the guy at the end, when ken was crying in his speech and the woman seeing the light and talking about the outpouring of support..

The moment that for some reason really resonated was the guy who lost an eye said "we get to enjoy something those 4 people didn't want to" thought that was such a silencing statement.

Sorry this is so long I'm all gripped by it!

You've made me cry again Ruby!

MissM sorry! I don't know why I find it such an emotive topic but I had a big conversation with my dad about it today.

I've only ever seen him cry once before and he told me he cried during the programme, particularly where the guy talked about directing his wife onto the bus.

A while ago I posted that I felt the outpouring of emotion around Diana's death was to do with people being confronted by their own mortality and I think possibly that is, for people like me who so easily could of been there, the same case.

It is just so desperately sad though.