7/7 ten years on

It seems impossible to believe that today marks the 10th anniversary of the London bombings. Sadly, it’s not at all difficult to believe that in the intervening decade the so-called war on terror has made the world a much more dangerous place.

Londoners knew, from the moment our far-from-beloved leader crawled as quickly and as far up Dubya’s ass as he could in the aftermath of 9/11, that Blair had made us a target. We all knew it was coming and to be honest most of us thought it would be much worse than it was. This in no way diminishes the horror for those innocent Londoners killed and maimed by four young British men.

It’s easy for me to capture what 7 July 2005 was like for me, one of the millions who were not harmed by the bombers. Although the version of events described by Jessica in Rum Do is somewhat fictionalised, the day I describe in the novel was essentially the day I had.

The events described two days later were also my experiences. First the shock of it all and then the awe at the way Londoners just got on with life.

I don’t know if these recollections are of interest to anyone today, but they are excerpted from the novel here: July 2005