How I reported on the London bombings — and the woman who cheated death

Times

3 days ago

On Wednesday July 6, 2005, London had been chosen to host the 2012 Olympics, prompting jubilation and an instant statement from Jack Straw, the foreign secretary. I was the parliamentary sketchwriter for The Times and the first week of July had been heady.
The most sketchable thing on the Commons agenda on Thursday, July 7, was expected to be environment questions and I had planned to cover that. But by the time I arrived at the press gallery, reports of the bombs had began to filter through. All of us who worked in the paper's tiny Westminster office knew this would be one of those days that you cannot forget.
'We are going to need you elsewhere today,' the news editor said.
I was sent to Tavistock Square near Euston, where there were reports that a bus had exploded. By now there was no public transport and so I walked, joining the streams of Londoners on foot that day. The next hours were a blur, arriving and seeing the No 30 bus and the horror of the debris. No one talked loudly. Trauma inspired mostly silence.
I talked to everyone, asking questions gently, acutely aware that I was asking people who had already been traumatised to relive it for me, more or less immediately. We did not know at the time how many had died, only that many had. It would later be confirmed that 13 people had died on the bus that day.
Everyone's stories included a mix of the mundane ('I wanted to catch that bus') and what felt like fate ('What would have happened to me if I had?').
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I interviewed Jasmine Gardner, 22, while she was huddled under an emergency blanket and although she was shaking, her words were composed. She, and so many others, showed such courage that day.
Afterwards I joined the crowds walking home, hearing the solid tramp tramping of feet. For me, that will always be the sound of resilience and London.
Originally published July 8, 2005
When Jasmine Gardner saw the No 30 bus pass by in Tavistock Square, she was desperate to get on it. She had just been forced off the Underground at Euston but, like thousands of others, had no idea why. All she knew was that she had to get to work and this double-decker was going her way.
The driver stopped to let a few people off, but did not let anyone on. Why? The bus was not full. Jasmine, 22, walked alongside, irritated, and the bus pulled ahead. She was walking briskly, intent on catching it, when it exploded. Bits of metal rained on her umbrella; a storm-cloud of debris, solids and flesh, filled the air.
It was 9.47am. A bomber had struck. She grabbed the person closest and they ran. The bus had been destroyed. 'I thought that everyone must have died.' It did not take long before she realised how close she had come to disaster. When I interviewed her, she was still shaking, wrapped in a blue St John Ambulance blanket.
No one knew how many had died on the bus but everyone assumed the worst. The police had cordoned off the square but, even at a distance, you could see the elegant façade of the British Medical Association splattered with bits of blood and bodies. 'Blood and guts,' whispered a man sadly as we stood at the cordon. 'Blood and guts.'
Lorenzo Pia, an Italian postgraduate medical student, was leaving his nearby flat when he heard the blast. 'The bus was without shape,' he said. 'Four or five injured people were walking about. They were dripping with blood, some from the head, others from legs and arms. Five or six people were lying in the street. They were not moving
'One of the injured was a young teenage girl who had blood streaming down her face. Another, an elegantly dressed man, had a leg injury. A woman was crying. She had blood down her face too, but there wasn't any panic or screaming. People just got on with helping each other.'
Sharleen Cunningham-Brown, 26, was walking along when she heard, and felt, the impact of the bomb. She saw people, presumed dead, on the pavement. She ran into a doorway, and hugged the strangers she found there. 'Everyone was crying and hugging each other,' she said. 'It was like it was chaos and then, a few seconds later, it was quiet.'
It was some time before anyone spoke the word terrorism. Even then, it did not seem real. It was early evening before reports emerged on what had happened on the No 30. Terence Mutasa, a staff nurse at University College hospital, treated two passengers, young women in their twenties, for minor injuries and shock. 'They were saying some guy came and sat down on the bottom deck and that he exploded,' he said. 'They said the guy sat down and the explosion happened. They thought it was a suicide bomber.'
Ayobai Bello, 43, a security guard, left his bank to cross Tavistock Road when it was flooded with commuters coming down from Euston. He saw the explosion and the top and back ripped off the bus. It was a scene of carnage.
'All I could think was, they are all dead. I saw all this with my own eyes. In front of me in the road was a woman but there were no arms and there were no legs, it was just her body and her head, and body parts were scattered everywhere. There were also two men on the floor, one in blue trousers and one in a shirt, they were both dead. They were both gone. The man I saw hanging dead from the bus, he was a very old man with white hair. He was about 80.' Hours later, in the streets around the bus, the atmosphere was eerie.
Hotels and businesses were evacuated and scores of people trailed trolley suitcases behind them. There were no raised voices. Everyone was being most kind to one another.
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The Friends House opened its doors to the displaced in Euston. Its corridors were lined with people wrapped in silver foil to keep warm. It provided refreshments, a quiet room for prayer, and large area where everyone gathered to listen to the radio. There was no hubbub. People just sat. A few seemed to be crying, privately.
Others gathered in groups in doorways or in foyers of the large university buildings that dot this part of London. They stood around televisions to watch the news. Looking at the bus, from the police cordon, I knew that in hours it would become a shrine.