The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Church chat

Edgware Road Station tunnel, Thursday 7th July 2005, 8.50am

8/7/2022

“Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, / But he’ll remember with advantages /…” (Henry V)

The morning in London when 52 innocents going to work were killed by 4 suicide bombers on 3 tube trains and a bus.

How could I forget?!  What were the “advantages”? Dodgy hearing, lost left leg and spleen, “extremely vulnerable” during Covid… but there were more positive aspects besides my blood group:B+.

I was 50 years old, in peak condition (?!), recently married to Angela at HPC (May 2002), with a 20-month-old Matthew, directing Julius Caesar (and playing Brutus) for The Hampstead Players (opening night a week away on Thursday 14th July), and had just started a job as Management Accountant with the Evening Standard.

At the RNOH Prosthetic Rehabilitation Unit in Stanmore late October 2005 I filled in a ‘Goal Agreed Sheet’ with my physio Jennifer Fulton:-

  1. Return to work p/time using combination of prosthesis & wheelchair by mid Nov05
  2. Walk to church or Mother’s house on 2 sticks over slopes, stairs, garden by 01.12.05
  3. As (2) but on 1 stick by 01.02.06
  4. Return to amateur dramatics – acting and directing by April 06
  5. Return to enjoying walks on Hampstead Heath without stick or with stick only over adverse terrain for confidence by March 06

I believe I achieved all these goals, some of them earlier, and I never did need a wheelchair at work, and I remained at the Evening Standard until I retired in September 2019.  I got back to acting asap; we finally performed Julius Caesar around the 1st anniversary of 7/7, tho’ I needed the help of Bill Risebero and my mother Pat for the direction.  And I continued my amateur acting with the Hampstead Players, the latest being a part in Much Ado About Nothing performed last week in the HPC churchyard.  And I still enjoy Heath walks around the beautiful Kenwood House area with my wife Angela.

I thought I’d have to retire as Head Server and from serving but I remember early on Judy East pooh-poohing that idea, and I’m still at it, tho’ I’d be grateful if we could add to our numbers.  The HPC community have been marvellous and the love and support (and cards and visits, grapes and flowers) shown during my time in hospital was inspirational.

Here is how I cannot fail to remember this particular week:-

Monday 4th July – This morning I was at St Mary’s Audiology Dept to pick up an upgraded hearing aid.

Wednesday 6th July – I shall be driving to Stanmore to collect my computerised-knee back from its service in Germany.

Thursday 7th July – 17th anniversary of that Thursday in 2005.  We remember at 8.50am, both survivors and the bereaved, at Edgware Road Station, those innocent six in ‘my’ carriage, the second carriage on that Circle Line tube, who died due to the suicide bomber positioned a few feet to the left of where I was sitting reading my Julius Caesar script. Then we visit and thank again St. Mary’s Hospital followed by an event in Hyde Park by the 7/7 Memorial.

And I remember and keep in touch with my saviours: Jason Rennie, a South African now working in Dubai, and Jane Pitkin, a paramedic now living in Bulgaria.  Other saviours were Peter Zimonjic, a Canadian who was writing for The Daily Telegraph, and a PC Dave Hill who heard the news on his car radio and went down into the tunnel without waiting for official orders.

I learnt of PC Hill during the 2010 Inquest into the London Bombings, where he gave tearful testimony – “He was still alive but I thought he wouldn’t be for very long”.  When asked by Lady Justice Hallett why he continued into the tunnel, he replied: “because I was there”.

Also at the Inquest there was a rare laugh in all the grim evidence when I was asked what my first thought was when the bomb was detonated, and I replied that I thought “the French dunnit”, Paris having lost out to London in the bid for the 2012 Olympics the day before!

Talking of “advantages”, one was that our family, all four of us, got free tickets for that glorious 2012 Opening Ceremony.  In the same year too, during Holy Week, I was invited by the LAPD to speak at a Counter Terrorism Conference in Los Angeles, the only time I have ever been to the USA.

I have sadly lost touch with Dave Hill but most 7/7 anniversaries a few of us amputees and partners and our ‘saviours’ gather for a Greek dinner… but we have missed the last few due to Covid. 

The very first 7/7 dinner was also missed as we kept to the promise of returning to Julius Caesar before it was so “rudely interrupted”.

There is a very good programme made by Testimony Films and shown on Channel 4 in 2008 called “The Angels of Edgware Road” which includes contributions from yours truly, my saviour Jason Rennie, and a touching sequence near the end with a pregnant (with Alice) Angela and a very young Matthew in our West Hampstead garden and on the Heath.

I have always said “I saw more love than hate that day”.

(the photos are of me as Friar Francis in the latest Hampstead Players productions of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and Angela and me on our 20th wedding anniversary taken by our daughter Alice)