Ten years on....

So I may not have written in a while, but as today is one of those days of thought and reflection, it seems as good as day as any to share my thoughts with the world. 

Ten years ago today was like every other day, yet another day on the trusty steed that is the 73 bus, taking my usual humdrum commute to work. There had been talk of a potential terrorist attack on the London transport system in the news in previous months, talk had been going on for years in fact, and especially so since the Madrid bombings of the previous year. But this is London, there is ALWAYS talk of terrorist attacks. There has been ever since I was a kid, IRA bomb scares were the norm rather than the exception, so I was well used to living with threat. Even so, I clearly remember one day in 2004, a Metro newspaper blaring the headline that an attack on the underground was 'expected and imminent’. It was in that moment that I was convinced of the need to move somewhere where I could catch buses on my daily commute instead of tubes, and was I ever grateful because on this day, 10 years ago, that headline was came true.

As we all know, on that momentous day, 4 men set off to put fear in our hearts, while simultaneously ripping the hearts out of the lives of 52 sets of family and friends. And yes, they did scare us, but not forever. We would get back on our tubes again, we would ride our buses back and forth to work, to our friends, to our family, because what they instilled in us was courage, not fear.

These 4 men tried to divide us, setting us against our neighbours, our fellow commuters. But when I walked home that day from central London, walking along with thousands of others, all I saw was unity, not division. The unity of strangers helping strangers navigate their way through crowded streets thronged with office refugees outside of their usual 9-5 existence. The unity of pub landlords and customers, barmen defying stereotypes by handing out free drinks to all and sundry on a scorching summer’s day, the sun all bold and beautiful in the blue sky contradicting the shockingly dark turn of the day. The unity of my friends, coming together unasked for, drifting in their dribs and drabs to our collective home from home, our local pub beer garden. That unity was not what they set out to achieve. 

I think perhaps what those 4 heartless men did not consider is this is London, and no one gets to do that to London. This is the London that has been relentlessly multicultural since way back when, since beyond that year, beyond that decade, heck even beyond the last century and so many before that. This is the London that has fallen prey to terrorists before, but it has never fallen victim, and ten years on, I know this to be true. I knew it to be true as I looked into the faces of my fellow passengers on the way into work this morning, and I’ll know it to be true as I travel into work tomorrow morning, and every morning thereafter. We may be wary but we’re not weary, unnerved perhaps but undeterred, we are not divided nor are we conquered. That's because we are Londoners, made up of people from every corner of the globe and while we remain Londoners, blitz spirit & all, we will not let them win.