This Stubborn World: Dark day for London

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February 2007

July 08, 2005

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Dark day for London

Today, the day after the horror that shook London, we are, all of us, recovering from the shock of the event. Here in the suburbs of London, we watched as did the rest of the world. It was strange to be observing this on tv when the areas affected are so familiar. Though we've all known this would probably happen at some point, it doesn't make it easier.

Little in the suburbs changes. Children had to be picked up directly from their classrooms rather than the playground yesterday, in case parents were delayed in the centre or worse. By late afternoon, once the mobile networks were up again and the news was starting to sink in, texts and e-mails came thick and fast - are you all right? - you weren't in town today were you? - just checking in... Everybody wanted to know that their friends and family were ok. So far as I'm aware, nobody I know has been directly affected. But I know hundreds of people in this city and I haven't managed to check in with everybody yet, so I cling to hope that all my friends and colleagues and their dear ones have not been hurt. Everybody is shaken and most are in trepidation about continuing to travel.

In today's Guardian, Ian McEwan's writes:

"In Auden's famous poem, Musee des Beaux Arts, the tragedy of Icarus falling from the sky is accompanied by life simply refusing to be disrupted. A ploughman goes about his work, a ship "sailed calmly on", dogs keep on with "their doggy business". In London yesterday, where crowds fumbling with mobile phones tried to find unimpeded ways across the city, there was much evidence of the truth of Auden's insight. While rescue workers searched for survivors and the dead in the smoke-filled blackness below, at pavement level men were loading lorries, a woman sold umbrellas in her usual patch, the lunchtime sandwich makers were hard at work.

It is unlikely that London will claim to have been transformed in an instant, to have lost its innocence in the course of a morning. It is hard to knock a huge city like this off its course. It has survived many attacks in the past. But once we have counted up our dead, and the numbness turns to anger and grief, we will see that our lives here will be difficult. We have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream. The city will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on the tube, once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant, cinema or theatre? And we will face again that deal we must constantly make and remake with the state - how much power must we grant Leviathan, how much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security?"

Find the full article here: link

Only last week, my husband came back from a day in town, telling me about having taken lunch in Tavistock Square. He remarked what a peaceful spot it was. Now that idyll is shattered. Oddly, I saw an ex-boyfriend speaking in Tavistock Square as an eye-witness yesterday. I hadn't seen him in twenty years. So far that's as close as I come to knowing those who witnessed it.

McEwan is right to speak of numbness. It's not emotional numbness I think, it's simply the body's way of expressing trauma. I sense a strange calmness in people now. A coming together of people in communities and families, a sense of the will to survive. There's a deeper awareness of what really matters in life, a desire to continue life in spite of fear. But there will be no compensation for the loss of life. Today my thoughts, like everyone's are with the families and friends of the bereaved and injured.

July 08, 2005 in Current Affairs | Permalink

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July 08, 2005

Dark day for London

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