Dear All
As far as I'm aware, this was the first bombing of the tube that nearly simultaneously blew up three trains at once, in a relatively small geographical part of the rail and Underground network in London. While mayhem was going on under the streets of London, those outside the BMA building in Tavistock Square were subject to the horror of a bus exploding in their midst sending bits of bus and body parts all over the surrounding area.
In the ensuing reaction, parts of the road network - which were already jammed thanks to rush hour traffic - had many thousands of people taking to the streets in the surrounding areas. Some media commentators reported that some people panicked as if these people had some how let down the English character of keeping a stiff upper lip in a crisis. Within a short while all the buses and tube trains in London were halted. I understand this caused some disruption to the daily lives of many Londoners and people in London.
Oh yes, some in the emergency services personnel did react in a way that - in the cold light of day several years later - may have been unprofessional. I have no doubt some swore at fellow workers from different emergency services in frustration/panic/horror/nausea at what confronted them. I have no doubt that at the scene of each horror stricken site some things might have been done better. However sensationally picking up individual failings made on the day is somewhat misleading.
During the period involved I was contracted to work for the infraco company Metronet, who were responsible for the trains and - with Tubelines - sent their emergency response teams to secure the trains and tunnels so the police could get access. I spoke with several of the people involved with the emergency response teams. They did not want to discuss the details of what they saw and neither did I want to hear them. However they were able to convey the atrocious working conditions - heat, stink, blood, loads of rats at certain points etc - to me.
I did speak to some of the Metronet managers and operatives who were in their offices - like any other day - near a tube station where one of the trains blew up. They felt the explosion - did not know it was a bomb - but knew it was serious and ran, yes ran, out of their offices grabbing PPE as they went to the station to try and help with a problem they didn't know the details of.
With ambulances stuck in traffic; communications in difficulties; police trying to get some control over the situation; the passengers, London Underground staff and emergency services at the four bomb sites doing their best and tens of thousands of people wandering around the surrounding streets, is it any wonder some mistakes were made, bits of the plan didn't work etc.
My overriding memory that day was of an injured person on a mobile hospital bed being pushed by nurses, with an intravenous bag being held by a health worker with a doctor beside the bed running - all of them running - through the streets of London to get the person to hospital because ambulances were not available.
I have the Metronet internal newspaper printed the following month and it is has a list of all the staff who attended the scenes on that day, each of whom was publicly thanked by the company for their efforts. The list is long. It contains rail workers, engineers, Directors, senior managers and health and safety advisers amongst others. This would be repeated with Tubelines, London Underground and many other organisations.
So if we are going to react to the testimony of individuals on the trains blown up, then I suggest it would be helpful to keep a perspective about what everybody was trying to do on the day. The emergency services put a plan into action. Elements of it did not work properly because of the damage done by the bombs and the resulting difficulties in communication and having thousands of people turfed out onto the streets. As always, in the aftermath of the day's events reviews have taken place. Whether lessons have been learnt can only be seen the next time trains and buses are blown up in rush hour.
In 7 days, London Underground was operating at over 90% capacity, if my memory serves me well. I actually think the response effort to this horrendous act of mass murder was remarkable. Not only from those who actually responded to the four bomb sites but also from the hundreds of thousands of people who were left stranded in the city that day.
So as the questions are asked about whether more could have been done, yes it could have. Were mistakes made, yes quite a few. The point is that day is history. Nothing we do or say is going to change it. Yes we may learn of individual mistakes as the Coroner goes through the testimony. Learn the lessons by all means and many have been absorbed. However it would be appreciated if all the efforts made by all those people and professionals on the day were not denigrated as individual issues come to light.
Some months the before the bombings I had met a young Polish women receptionist as I checked in at a hotel I use and subsequently saw her again a couple of times over a two month period. She had come to this country to study and learn English, which was already good. She was looking forward to the future and was killed in one of the trains as it blew up. Monika was her name and I recognised her picture in among those that were printed of the dead. Details given about her confirmed to me that she was one of those killed. She was 21 years old.
So - like many others - I will take the memory of that day to my grave. I wasn't in London when it happened, thankfully. Nevertheless I have tremendous respect and appreciation for all those who saved lives and dealt with the all the consequences of that terrible day.
I'm sorry not everybody could be saved but as I reviewed the photographs of the wreckage of the trains and the bus, it was a surprise to me that any people in the vicinity of the bombs survived. For many that did, it was the emergency services and medical staff who made a difference.
Nigel