The Anonymous Widower

London Just Carried On

Ten years ago today, I published a post on my old blog entitled Carry On London, as a reflection after the bombings earlier in the day.

I make no apologies for repeating it today.

Tuesday, I went to the funeral of a friend. Alex died young at 48. Life is cruel. But even the funeral was not a sad affair! Alex wouldn’t have wanted it so and stated it probably many times before she died!

Wednesday, I was in Trafalgar Square, when my fair and beloved city, London, was announced as the winner of the 2012 Olympic Games. Life can be so sweet.

But then we have the bombings of today!

Thousands of times, I’ve travelled through the tunnels under London. Many times, I’ve done the stretch between Kings Cross and Russell Square, where most of the casualties occurred. Occassionally, I’ve used the two parts of the Circle Line, where the other two bombs went off.

Am I bitter? Angry? Sad? Vindictive?

Not sure!

Sad yes! As why would anybody want to do such a thing! How would I feel if one of my sons did that? I would know I had failed. How would I feel if one of my sons had got caught in the blasts. I don’t know! But thankfully they didn’t.

So it has to be sadness at the moment. Vindictiveness only follows the old eye for an eye maxim, which means that we all go blind!

But perhaps, the greatest thing we can do is just carry on, remembering those that died and vowing to be more vigilant so that it won’t happen again.

Fay would have done that. She worked for my father and during the Second World War, the shy girl from North London, worked as a conductor on the buses. One day, the bus she should have been on, was hit directly by a German bomb. Everybody died! She just remembered the tragedy, I suspect she cried long and hard, and then she carried on.

A few crackpots, who take the good name of Islam in vain, should never be able to bring London to its knees, when the evil Hitler and the Luftwaffe failed.

A last point for Bush and all those who think that the death penalty is a deterrent in these sort of cases. I’ll ignore the fact that the London atrocities may well have been suicide bombers, which are usually pretty difficult to execute. But as I am someone who has no belief in any religious being at all, I do believe that we should do all we can to preserve reasonable life here, as there is nothing more to come. So if we ever execute anybody, then we are losing our own humanity and descending below their level.

Carry on London.

A lot has happened to me since that fateful day of the 7th July, 2005.

My wife of nearly forty years and our youngest son, both died of cancer. I then had a stroke, which left me unable to drive. So I’ve moved back to London and almost ironically, I now live close to the route of the number 30 bus, one of which was destroyed with the loss of thirteen lives in the bombings.

But London has looked after me, as only one of the world’s great cities can.

And London has carried on, just as Fay believed you should.

July 7, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | World | London, Terrorism