The magnitude of the tragedy speaks for itself, but I watched the first part of a drama on the events leading up to that fateful day on the BBC last night. I’m in two minds about this sort of television “docu-drama”. On the one hand they are informative in that they provide a dramatised insight into what happened and how it was allowed to happen. On the other hand if I was a relative of one of the victims I would probably have found it in bad taste and stomach-churning to watch. Having said that, it was gripping and gave a useful, if semi-fictionalised account of the growth of Al-Qaeeda and how the events of the preceding few years – the 1993 bomb at the WTC and the massacres in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salam - lead to the fanaticism and bitterness that resulted in the current state of fear in which we now live.
Since then we have had Bali, Madrid, London, Sharm el-Sheikh, Kusadasi and Doha, and the tension remains. I was particularly lucky not to have been caught up in the London bombings on July 7th last year. One of the explosions occurred on the train between Moorgate and Aldgate, the one which I would normally take to work. On the afternoon of July 6th I left work early suffering from a heavy cold which I had developed after being caught in a sudden and unexpected shower of rain on my way home a few days previously. As it was the middle of summer I hadn’t brought a coat or umbrella so bore the brunt of the rain. On July 7th, I still wasn’t in a fit state to return to work – how very fortunate I was.
However this post is dedicated to those who weren’t so lucky.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five years on…
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1 comment:
Sounds as if you had a lucky escape!!! I usually get the Piccadilly Line or the Northern Line from where I live in North London. On 7/7 I chose the Northern Line as I was early anyway and needed to renew my travelcard at the newsagents. If I had got on the Piccadilly Line I would have been travelling through Russell Square Station around the same time as the bomb went off so in theory could have been on that train......best not to think about these things Ciaran it seems neither of us was fated to die at that time.....
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