London Lives On

Emma Robinson

Every cliché that has ever been used to describe acts of terror and all man-made outrages probably could be applied to life in London on and since 7 July. Everyone has a story about that day. I was on a train going into London when my parents started to ring, and my friends and boyfriend started texting, ordering me to get off the train and go back home. It was a deeply frightening day of confusion, horror, and absolute powerlessness as we tried to understand what was happening. Everyone spent that day telling friends and family that yes, they were alive, and making sure that everyone they knew in London was too; doing that is as horrible as you imagine it to be. Two days afterwards I met someone whose partner had, thankfully, survived the Aldgate East bomb. This act resonated far beyond the actual bomb sites.

In those immediate days following the bombings, every emotion you expect flowed through London. Citizens felt anger and outrage that our city (yes, everyone really did become a Londoner that day whether they were born in Chelsea or Czechoslovakia) had been attacked. Fear resonated as people wondered if this would happen again, and whether there were more of these men out there. The worst moments were again what you imagine them to be: listening to people pleading for information about missing relatives, friends, partners; seeing the “Missing” posters outside train stations; reading the messages and floral tributes outside Kings Cross; signing the book of condolence, trying not to cry (and failing); watching as my city and the country ground to a halt for a minute’s silence.

Yet in the days since, London has not become a frightened city. Yes, there are more security alerts. For a long time, there were more police on patrol in stations, and there are more security patrols on the Underground. There was the weird and disturbing shock of seeing white plastic sheeting blocking off the road where the number 30 bus was blown up. Yes, too, for a while people scrutinised each other more on the trains – and shamefully and sadly Muslims did get extra looks. The attacks of 21 July were in a strange way even more unnerving than those on the seventh: since 9/11 everyone has been waiting for an attack, and on 7 July there was a sense that “it’s happened, and now (perversely) we can relax because it won’t happen again.” That confidence disappeared on 21 July.

Yet, as I said, London is not a city ruled by fear. A new normalcy has arrived. Survival instincts have kicked in: the human mind cannot cope with the exhaustion of always feeling frightened so you do, without intending to be disrespectful to those who died or blasé to the threat, deliberately stop thinking about it. Londoners have to use buses and tubes and we do. It is undoubtedly partly an act of defiance: to say to those who did this to us that they haven’t beaten us and they won’t. London has chosen to be strong, to laugh, to love, to cry, to go out, to eat, to drink and simply, to live, just like every other city which has been through an attack like this. On 7 July I was horrified and frightened and I grieved for my city and all those involved. I was also deeply proud of my city which dealt with these events with such stoutness and dignity, and I still am.