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Tuesday 7 July 2009

7/7 four years on

My day was a weird one on the 7th July 2005, to be fair given the Olympics announcement it was a weird week.

I was now Head of Office and Organiser to Lynne Featherstone MP and we had a good day when the Olympics result was announced - in fact we had been stood in the corridor behind the Speakers Chair when the announcement happened.

Anyhow, back to 7/7. I'd come into our Norman Shaw office early to deal with casework, parliamentary questions and the like but was due to take my laptop over to Southwark (previous job) so Matt could take EARS off.

I'd gone from Westminster to London Bridge on the Jubilee line and was halfway up the escalator when they stopped at the moment the first bomb went off. 3 tube staff ran, no, sprinted down past startled passengers.

I continued up and out to Matt, the staff at the top were saying power surge.

Afterwards I headed back into London Bridge but given the crowds headed up to the train station and onto a train to Charing Cross.

From Charing Cross I sauntered up Whitehall, still completely oblivious to what had happened although by now there was the sound of sirens across London.

It was only when I got back to our office in Norman Shaw that I realised the bombs had gone off bringing parts of London to a standstill, but worse, that people had died and more injured.

The eerie sound of sirens then sounded for the remainder of the day, no work was done, it was spent watching the news and just standing silently.

Lynne had driven in with one of her daughters that day and all the MPs were trying their best to act normal and strong in light of this terror attacks.

It was a day I will always remember and will never forget those who died or who were injured nor the people from the emergency services who were heros.

Thank you!

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1 comment:

Jenni Lang said...

I was there as well for an event and in our office in Covent Garden. I got stuck in London that night in a hotel on Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a very odd atmosphere, a bit like Christmas Day when everything bar Burger King was closed. The blitz spirit came through though as everyone marched home at lunchtime with all the buses and trains cancelled.

I just remember our boss giving us a bag of Percy Pigs and a bottle of water to get us to where we needed to go!

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