Still skipping

10 years ago I was still surprised but mildly jubilant that London had won the 2012 Olympic bid the day before. We'd all been crowded round the office radio when the results were announced and a huge (as huge as 15 people can make it) cheer went up when they said "London", along with various "are they sure"s and other jokey comments about our inability to organise even a tiny piss-up in a brewery. But London was feeling pretty cocky, 10 years ago. It was a gorgeous summer's day, we were the best place to live in the world, and we were going to be an Olympic City again. Wimbledon had just finished, the first Ashes Test at Lords was only a couple of weeks away. It was bloody picture perfect.

10 years ago, I was low-level anxious because I had a job interview the next day, my first for three years. I was working in a decent junior job for a very nice company, but I wanted to see what else was out there (spoiler - they subsequently offered me that job, and after much angsting I decided to turn it down and instead stayed at the very nice company for another six years). The interview was in central London (Angel, to my Tooting) and I was obsessively checking the transport options. It should be dead easy - straight up the Northern line, no changes.

But, 10 years ago while I was interrogating the TfL website, stories started appearing on BBC news about a "massive power surge" across the underground network which had brought all tubes to a halt. Inwardly cursing, outwardly I mentioned it to my colleagues in passing, and we were all as peculiarly fascinated with the failures in our local transport system as only London commuters can be. It was extreme, and unprecedented for the entire tube network to be shut down, but it was interesting and infuriating rather than scary. I was entirely focused on the impact the "surge" would have on my route to my interview the next day.

Then, 10 years ago, rumours started trickling through about some explosions. I assumed, on immediate glance, that they were related to the power surge. Big electrical bangs, maybe. And then, some time slightly shy of 10am, a bus exploded.

Suddenly, 10 years ago, it was a very different game. Everything tilted. My colleagues and I looked at each other with more serious faces, verging on scared ones. This was beyond unusual. It was way past unprecedented. Someone, some people, somewhere, were attacking our city. Who does that? Why?

We didn't know what would happen next, 10 years ago: where the next bomb would be, who was hurt, what had happened. We didn't know if everyone we knew was OK. There was no Facebook or Twitter 10 years ago to share news, or panic, and we were glued to the BBC news website for updates. I called or texted everyone I knew who could be in London and started a roll call on my journal listing those who I knew to be OK. G was fine, he was working from home outside town, and I was in touch with my two housemates who were alright though both as wired as me. One was a radio broadcast journalist working for 5 Live - she wasn't on the rota that day but called in a report about what she was seeing out in town. My London-based brother, however, remained unresponsive to texts and phone calls and I was starting to get frantic, not helped by the mobile phone lines going down, until some time later he got in touch - all absolutely fine, and he'd been asleep throughout the whole morning, oblivious to it all. His former girlfriend, it later transpired, had been unable to get on a tube at Kings Cross so had gone to get a bus from Russell Square, just as the bus bomb was detonated. She was very lucky. There must have been thousands of similar near misses that day, and hundreds of terrible, awful bad luck choices.

Nobody did much work that day 10 years ago. There were no more explosions that we knew of, but news was fairly scanty. All public transport throughout London was on shut down. I spoke to the people I was interviewing with and they postponed my interview to the afternoon of the following day. I received texts and calls and messages from all sorts of friends and family, checking in that I was alright. At the end of my working day I walked home, only a couple of miles for me so I felt lucky really, aside from wearing my interview heels which chafed as I walked, looking at everyone else walking too.

The next day 10 years ago, a day I had off work, I woke up to sunshine and the sound of children playing outside. I walked to the tube station that afternoon to get to my interview and didn't hesitate to go down the escalator. What was the point? London is too big, too complex, to stop turning for long, and I was and am a tiny cog in the overall machine. I felt less scared and more defiant. And, I believe, so did everyone else. I saw one of the best sides of London and Londoners, 10 years ago. And we mustn't forget.

• 10 years ago this morning, I wrote this post about what massively unlucky timing it was for the tube network to go down when I needed it most, ahead of realising what was happening and panicking about my brother (and relaxing when I knew he was alright).


• 10 years ago this afternoon, I used my journal to list everyone I knew was ok. (And then I updated about my interview situation.)


• 10 years ago and one day, I posted about how proud I was to live in this city.


• 10 years ago, four suicide bombers detonated their bombs on three commuter underground trains and one commuter bus. 52 people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands affected with long-term impacts. I haven't forgotten.

I've woken up this morning, blissfully late because I have the day off work, and the sun is coming through my window and the children in the primary school are having a PE lesson and their giggles and shouts are drifting into my bedroom.

Yesterday already feels like the past, and frankly that is where I want it to stay. Britain is not cowering in fear, and Londoners certainly aren't. And this isn't bravado -- it just genuinely is. I feel a quiet but intense pride in my fellow Londoners that today we will all be living our lives as normal. Lives which have been brushed with tragedy and worry and anger, yes, but our lives, and all remaining unphased by yesterday's events.

The worst part of yesterday, for me, was the couple of hours after the news of the bus bomb, where the sick realisation of what was actually happening took hold and we didn't know what was going to happen next. Before that when we still mostly believed in the 'power surges', there was mostly a feeling of frustration with the London transport system (sorry, London, for doubting you) and various wisecracks about how London could possibly cope with hosting the Olympics. Shutting down the whole system was something practically unprecedented, and I was going through my own personal hell regarding my interview at 9am this morning, but until the news of the bus, nobody was taking it seriously.

Then the reports of a bus "being ripped open like a tin of sardines" started appearing on the website. It still took a while to sink in, but gradually we moved into a couple of hours of slight madness, where we were all ringing loved ones and getting worried texts and messages from friends. But even during that phase, scary as it was, there was no hysteria or panic. Once I'd established that my brother was ok (who had been in BED, contentedly unaware of anything and just slightly miffed that his phone wasn't working) I, like most of my colleagues, settled down to a regular refreshing of the BBC and Sky News websites. And it was terrorism, yes, and explosions had happened, and there was confusion and a little panic being reported, but nobody was hysterical. Watching the news footage last night I was so, so impressed with how the emergency services swept into action, and by the resilient nature of Londoners. Seeing people who had been in the vicinity of explosions talking to the cameras with very slightly shaky voices. One man who looked like he had half of his face burned, casually talking to a news reporter. People had to walk home miles last night (and I feel for them), and they just got on with it. There was an amazing lack of complaint -- just a general feeling of "fuck, that's happened, ok fine let's get on with it".

Dozens of people have died, so far, and they will not be forgotten. But London will mourn for them while it continues on its inexorable path.

And... I am not scared, today. I wasn't yesterday, once I'd established that everyone I knew was OK. London is a vast behemoth that it is impossible to cripple, and look -- today most of the transport is already up and running again. Everyone who can is going to work and living their lives. I am proud and happy to be living here.

London people who I know or have heard/seen are OK: _hypatia_, bextera, bslsimes, chiller, firmbutfair, gmh, lsugaralmond, mzdt, paul_kruzycki, ravicurio, renarde, tjej, tubewalker, totkat_uk, vilebody and terriem.

That's everyone I can think of who's London related on my f-list. If anyone knows about other people I know who are OK (or not, I suppose) please let me know.

Also, there is a community set up already -- london_070705 -- with a roll call thread there (although it will get madly busy, I imagine).

Hi. This journal is almost entirely friends-only. I tend to only reciprocally friend people who have introduced themselves first (it's nice to know who's reading), so if you'd like to be added then say hello and we'll see what happens. Comments on this post are screened.