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Celebrant who worked near terrorist attack pays tribute to victims
A celebrant has paid tribute to victims of the London 7/7 bombings as she recalled the terrorist attack 20 years on. On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers struck the capital's transport network, killing 52 people and injuring more than 770 on three London Underground trains and a bus. The Prime Minister and London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan laid wreaths at the July 7 memorial in Hyde Park at 8.50am to coincide with the moment that the first bomb went off. READ MORE: Jobs axed at private school The King asked for the country to reaffirm its commitment to building a society of all faiths and backgrounds, standing against those who seek to divide us. The Mayor of London and the Prime Minister laying wreathsSinead Comerford, who lives in West Oxfordshire, was in the capital on the day of the attacks. At the time, she worked for an Australian hotel accommodation website, as a product development manager for Germany and Austrian hotels. The office was on Elder Street, not far from Liverpool Street station and Edgware Road. Now she works as a celebrant, conducting ceremonies for families, and lives in Shipton-under-Wychwood with her husband Nick Beaney. Ms Comerford said: "I will remember the day forever. I was living and working in London at that time. On July 7, 2005, I had taken the 344 bus at 8am from Stockwell to Liverpool Street and walked to the office I was working in, not far from Edgware Road. "Shortly before 9am, one of our colleagues alerted us that his train could not stop at Liverpool Street station and he rang asking for directions back to our office. "Our other colleague had not arrived yet. We were beginning to worry." She added: "The first reports on the radio were of a power surge. I remember saying immediately that this must be a premeditated terrorist attack. We were very relieved when both remaining beloved colleagues arrived into the office. "Soon we could hear helicopters circling the skies. Phone lines were quickly down, so it was getting harder and harder to reach other friends and colleagues working in the city. "Fortunately I managed to contact family in Dublin to say I was safe. "We were all advised to stay in our offices and not to leave and go out into the streets. I remember seeing buses below, carrying people wrapped in foil blankets. The day was long and harrowing. I remember feeling very frightened." Sinead Comerford (Image: Sinead Comerford) Ms Comerford said she recently watched A song for Jenny, a drama on the BBC, about "the beautiful young woman, Jenny Nicholson, who was a victim of the attack at Edgware Road", and her mother Julie's response to the attack. She urged people to think of Jenny, her family and the other victims. Ms Comerford added "I hope Londoners today can reflect as they travel around the city and smile at someone near them on the train, bus and Tube today, strike up a conversation and help someone carry their heavy luggage up the Tube stairs." Three of the blasts happened on London Underground, on or about 8.50am, in the vicinity of Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square stations. The fourth device exploded at 9.47am on a bus that had been diverted via Tavistock Square. Last week, the husband of a doctor caught up in the 2005 attacks paid tribute to his 'wonderful' wife. Gerardine Quaghebeur, from Wootton near Abingdon, was sitting on an underground carriage near Aldgate station when a terrorist detonated a bomb. She helped fellow victims, and her husband Peter Richards said 'the shock and trauma of it never left her'. His wife of 30 years passed away on June 19.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
'I can't live like this anymore': Grans demand action after repeated flat flooding
Two grandmothers in Easterhouse have suffered repeated flooding coming from flats upstairs – with one woman living elsewhere for two years because of the problems. Residents are calling for landlords and housing providers to do more to protect buildings in the area as one of the flats above is rented out while the other one houses asylum seekers. Linda Doyle, of Denmilne Street, was flooded three times in May and June with water pouring through her bathroom ceiling and once in the living room. She also had flooding last October. Great-grandmother Linda, 67, who lives underneath a flat managed by Mears, which provides asylum seeker accommodation, said she feared the water was 'pouring through' her lights. She said: 'It is just constant. I am getting fed up with it. I can't live like this anymore. I can't do anything because of the constant water coming through. It is really unfair.' Although faced with initial problems of trying to report the issue, Linda eventually got through to Mears who have sent out plumbers and a 'helpful' supervisor visited. But she wants the problem permanently solved – and Mears have now agreed to fix her ceiling. (Image: LDR) Linda said: 'I want the pipework to be checked and want them to make sure the bath is sealed. I have worked hard to get my property – sometimes I feel like walking away. There are a lot of different tenants. They are often nice and don't bother me as long as they are not noisy. But it's the flooding. I have had enough.' A Mears spokesman said: 'We're sorry for the inconvenience caused by the water leaks from one of our properties. The source of the leaks has been resolved and the ceiling in the affected flat has been repaired and now that it is dry, it is being redecorated this week. We're grateful for the resident's patience and pleased to hear positive feedback about our staff.' Another grandmother who lives nearby hasn't been home for more than two years in Lochdochart Road due to repeated flooding problems from the rental property above her. The leakage led to her ceiling collapsing in 2023. City Building workers turning up to assess the situation as it was considered a hazard by environmental health. The homeowner, who does not want to be named, said: 'It has been leaking on and off for couple of years – it stopped for four to six weeks and then started again.' Her property is at ground level – and the first-floor flat above is rented out through a letting agency Easy Let. READ MORE: TRNSMT food prices REVEALED including £15.50 pizza After repairs were carried out following the collapse of the ceiling as she waited for the plaster to dry more water came in. Describing how she works hard to 'pay for' the property while it is 'ruined,' the 65-year-old said: 'It is causing me grief. I have no insurance now. I have had to stay with different people.' Easy Let was contacted for comment. Dennis Docherty, chair of the Denmilne Community Action Group, has been campaigning for landlords and Mears to take more action regarding the maintenance of communal buildings and gardens in the Easterhouse area. He said: 'Why is the Government paying landlords so much and not holding them accountable? Buildings are falling into disrepair.' The residents have issues with messy gardens, dirty closes, missing glass in doors and roofs needing repairs among other complaints.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What research on sexting reveals about how men and women think about consent
Sexting – the creating and exchanging of sexual texts, photos and videos – has become part of many people's sexual and romantic lives. In an age where interpersonal relations often take place through digital technology, particularly since the pandemic, understanding sexting can help us better understand intimacy. Discussions around this topic inevitably involve concerns about sexual consent, and violation of it. One frequent concern is the risk of intimate image abuse, where private sexual images are shared without the consent of the person depicted. Another is the risk of receiving unsolicited or non-consensual 'dick pics'. These violations can and do affect people of any gender identity. But research suggests that both types of violation particularly affect girls and women, who are more likely to be victims of the non-consensual further sharing of intimate images and to receive unsolicited dick pics. Girls are also more likely than boys to report feeling pressured into sending nudes or other sexual content. In my research, I have explored how men and women experience and navigate consent when sexting in heterosexual relationships. Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK's latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. I have found that consent is central to the sexting practices of both women and men, but that they approach it differently. Overall, the women I spoke to were most concerned about the risk of having their consent violated. The men, on the other hand, were more worried about the risk of accidentally violating the consent of the person they were sexting with. Between June 2016 and February 2017, I interviewed 44 women about their use of digital media and technology in their romantic and sexual relations. A core part of this involved discussion about their experiences of sexting. Our conversations focused especially on their experiences of sexting with men, and on their notions of intimacy, risk and trust. My participants primarily saw mitigating the risk of intimate image abuse as an individual responsibility. In other words, these women saw themselves as responsible for ensuring that their consent was not violated by a sexting partner. They reflected on the importance of women taking charge to protect themselves. For example, by not placing their trust in the 'wrong' kind of person when sexting. Many employed tactics to reduce risk, from not showing their face in an image, to establishing close connections with the friends and family of their sexting partner. As one participant in her mid-20s explained: 'I do try to meet their family and friends beforehand, just so, if anything does happen, I can kind of go and tell his mum.' Just as the women focused on their individual responsibility for reducing risk, they also understood men as individually responsible for the sexism of sending unsolicited dick pics. Overall, they saw it as an issue of some men behaving badly, rather than part of a broader, systemic issue. This view differs from that of scholars in this area, who have linked non-consensual dick pics to wider misogyny and social issues like rape culture. The 15 interviews I conducted with men took place between May 2022 and May 2023, five years after the interviews with women. During these intervening years, the #MeToo movement gained global reach. This movement raised awareness about the widespread, social and structural issues that lead to sexual consent violations and abuse of power in sexual relations. This research, the findings of which will be published in a forthcoming book chapter, coincided with what many have recognised as a backlash to #MeToo. This backlash (in politics, entertainment and wider society) has manifested in, for example, the advance of the manosphere and crackdowns on sexual and reproductive rights. Only one participant mentioned #MeToo specifically, noting its role in putting sexual consent on the agenda. However, it was clear that the rapidly changing and tumultuous social and political landscape regarding sexual consent informed the mens' experiences. One participant in his late thirties stressed how an interest in consent was what made him want to participate in an interview. He said: 'I've grown up through a period where … understanding about consent has changed a lot. Men of my age … I just think we're very ill prepared for the expectations of modern society.' My women participants had been most concerned to protect themselves from having their consent violated. But the men appeared to be most worried about the possibility that they might violate a woman's consent by not having ensured sexual consent when sexting. Some participants struggled with managing what they understood as conflicting messages regarding women's expectations of men when sexting. For some, it meant avoiding sexting they saw as 'risky'. For others, it meant continuously establishing consent by checking in with a partner. Overall, my interviews revealed that both men and women take consent seriously, and are eager to prevent its violation. This is something I explored further in workshops with other researchers, relevant charities and stakeholders. Our discussions, summarised in the Consent in Digital Sexual Cultures report, stress the importance of creating room (for young men especially) to explore ideas around consent without worrying about social repercussions. Charities like Beyond Equality and Fumble are already creating spaces for such discussions in their meetings with young people at school, in the university and online. We also need to see more of these discussions taking place in the home, at government level and through collaboration with tech companies. Navigating consent in sexual relationships has long been a fraught task for many. Digital technology has created new opportunities for sexual interaction, but also for the violation of consent. We need spaces for dialogue, to help us figure out – together – what good sexual consent practice is and should look like, for everyone involved. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Rikke Amundsen has received a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant with reference number SRG2223\230389. This grant covered the costs of the research outlined in the Consent in Digital Sexual Cultures Report.
