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Original poster

BBC1 now........ Tube bombs 5 years on........

14 replies

lottiejenkins · 05/07/2010 22:58

It seems like yesterday when i watch this now. I remember feeling so lucky as i had travelled through the tube lines 12 hours before!! I tried to ring my best friend and it took half an hour before he rang me back! My sister should have been on the circle line train but she was on holiday!

OP posts:
Valpollicella · 05/07/2010 23:05

I too remember this like yesterday.

I was on the tube on the way to work and got kicked off at High St Ken, and walked the rest of the way. At this point we were told the power had gone down on the District line.

The further in I got, the more police I saw. Then the people who started walking past talking saying ...'power surge...' on their phones. Then no-one being able to get through on their phones.

By the time I got into work, everyone was gathered around the TV

Then spent the rest of the morning tryng to track down a colleague who it turned out was near enough from Tavistock Sq, to hear it and then see what had happened. Awful, awful day.

hellymelly · 05/07/2010 23:05

We lived right behind the station,thought for a while we wouldn't be allowed in as the whole area was cordoned off,London was silent that night,very eery.My dd was a tiny baby and we took her to leave flowers at the station,it was so tragic.

ClaireDeLoon · 05/07/2010 23:12

I got into Kings Cross train station, train was due at 8.56 but it must have been a minute or two late as the tube was already shut down. I assumed overcrowding so walked to Euston and it was only when that was shut down I heard the power surge excuse.

I walked to the client I was visiting, by mid morning it was hellish. DP had to drive as close to central London as he could and I walked to meet him.

Like you Valpollicella I had a colleague (ex-colleague by a few weeks actually) and she was interviewed by the news and was in bulletins and it was such a shock to see her, to know she was OK but to see and hear her talk about what she had been through. I also had a friend on the same train as me who got off at Finsbury Park and got the Piccadilly Line south a few trains behind the train that blew up at Kings Cross/Russel Square.

Original poster
lottiejenkins · 05/07/2010 23:17

I vividly remember Jeremy Vine interviewing a man a year after on his show. The man's wife died on the bus in Tavistock Square. She was an Israeli lady. He was so angry because she had been told she had to get off the tube because it was a power surge. He said that if she knew it was a bomb scare (due to her Israeli connections) she wouldnt have got on the bus. He was talking to her on her mobile when the bus bomb went off!

OP posts:
Valpollicella · 05/07/2010 23:21

Still makes me feel funny thinking about that whole day and I didn't even know anyone 'directly' involved.

Valpollicella · 05/07/2010 23:26

Yes Lottie, have read intervies with him before, so sad.

Although those first 15 mins, no one knew what was going on. It was a fire alarm at first when we got kicked off the tube at High St Ken, it was only the further in I walked and the more that was filtering through that people were getting to know what happened (or those I encountered anyway)

Rindercella · 05/07/2010 23:28

Yep, still makes me shudder thinking about that day.

I was at our offices on the Southbank and we were in a really contentious client meeting. I remember breaking for coffee and we all heard the news. We were all just too stunned to continue and the people who had been total arses earlier were no longer total arses. Madness it takes something like that to make some people civil.

I remember the short walk back to Waterloo that evening and the packed station; people desperate to get home. It was a hot day and my company was handing out bottled water as we left the building. I had to drive on the M25 a little later on that evening and had never known it so quiet.

I recall a thread on here a while ago asking "where were you when...?". I was amazed how few people could recall where they were on 7/7

Oh those poor people who were directly involved, and their poor families.

Valpollicella · 05/07/2010 23:33

One of my memories of 7/7 is that 4 or 5 of us who kind of lived in the same direction organised a cab home (or at least part of the way, so that we could then pick up buses or walk or whatever).

After having agreed the price over the phone with the cab company, the cab driver then added about £15 onto it.

We questioned this and he said 'Well, after today, you just want to get home, don't you? And we've gpt other people who need to get home too'

OMFG. Nearly swung for him from the back seat of the car

MollieO · 05/07/2010 23:34

I overslept and missed my usual overground train into London by a minute. Had only gone back to work 6 weeks early from maternity leave and was still struggling with the morning routine. Got next train and would usually get the Bakerloo line to Embankment. That morning there was a problem so I changed on to the Circle Line at Baker Street. In the next carriage from the bomber as it turned out. I was injured but not badly compared to some of those around me. I had two years of counselling seeing a clinical psychologist for PTSD. I know I was incredibly lucky to survive and physically to completely recover but it changed me forever. Despite where my office was (near Aldgate) I was the only person I knew who was in any way involved which I suppose is something to be thankful for.

NoahAndTheWhale · 05/07/2010 23:36

I remember it - was 7 months pregnant with DD and worked in central London. Luckily I worked 8am until 4pm and so was in the office before it happened.

Ended up having to walk from Baker Street to Finsbury Park to get a train - remember it getting hotter and hotter. But felt very glad I was fine and that everyone I knew was fine.

Valpollicella · 05/07/2010 23:42

Fuck, Mollie. So, so, so sorry to hear you were caught up...Speechless. Sorry

How are you coping these days?

(not much else I can say...)

So glad you had access to access to the psychologist. App it turns out that during the chaos lots of people's details weren't taken/taken wrongly which has meant they haven't been able to get to the direct help they needed

MollieO · 05/07/2010 23:54

I think I was relatively lucky. Work weren't very sympathetic and I was packed off to see the company quack when I came back to work (took a week off). Fortunately he realised that I was probably on the verge of a breakdown and referred me to what he described as a 'heavyweight' clinical psychologist. All covered on private health insurance. If I had waited like others did for NHS treatment I don't know where I would be. I have access to a 7/7 forum hosted by Scotland Yard and some of people's on-going experiences related on there are truly terrible.

Ds had just turned one when 7/7 happened and I was (and still am) a single parent. A very big reason to realise that I had to get better. The only people whom I have ever told what I experienced and witnessed that day are the psychologist and the detective who came to my home to take my statement on the Sunday after the bombing. I figured both were trained to deal with that sort of information unlike friends and family. This time of year is always hard and part of me does wonder when it will start getting easier.

I do think I am lucky that I have managed to keep my job (lots affected by 7/7 didn't) and to all intents and purposes get on with my life albeit with times where I do still struggle to cope.

Valpollicella · 06/07/2010 00:05

Sounds horrific Mollie

Am 'glad' (

Rindercella · 06/07/2010 12:05

Mollie, am thinking of you, and will be tomorrow x

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