London bombers who failed

The trial of the 21/7 bombing suspects, which started in London this week, has reminded me to draw your attention to the blog by Rachel from North London which I have recently added to my links.

I first came across Rachel North's writing in the immediate aftermath of the 7/7 bombings in 2005, when her moving and measured blog descriptions of the experience of being a victim of the bombers were picked up by the BBC web news and for me became a 'must read'. Then I read her piece in the Sunday Times. I only found this newer blog quite recently when searching for something else. Attracted by the title, as in all my years in London I have only lived north of the river, I found it was by the same writer. I will be interested to see what she ultimately has to say about the current legal proceedings once they have finished.

Although nobody I know was actually a physical victim of the 7/7 bombings, most Londoners know of at least one person who was in the vicinity and could so easily have been caught up in it all (in my case two... a friend and a neighbour) and the psychological effects were felt by everyone. Hubby works not too far from Kings Cross, though rarely travels by tube, and that day I received phone calls from both an estranged family member and an old friend who had himself been bereaved six months earlier, just to check he was not involved. Meanwhile I was watching it all unfold on the TV news, the terror attack that we had anticipated since 9/11 had finally arrived and for a few hours the city was incapacitated. To know that had things gone differently it could all have happened again on 21/7 is chilling.