7/7 London Transport bombings remembered at Tavistock Square.

This afternoon as my friends from March for England have done every year since 2005 (except for the year Covid restrictions forbad it) we met and laid flowers at the memorial at Tavistock Square. For those non UK readers, and with so very many jihad attacks in the years since one can be forgiven for not remembering the exact place and exact date of each atrocity, unless it hit one’s own home city, I’ll recap.

On the morning of July 7th 2005 4 jihadi murderers donned suicide vests and got on various routes of public transport in London, aiming to kill during the city rush hours. In total they murdered 52 people. Bombs went off on a circle line train nearest to Aldgate Station, a Piccadilly line train nearest to Edgware Road station, another circle line train nearest to King’s Cross station, and for reasons never discovered a No 30 double decker bus as it passed the British Medical Association HQ in Tavistock Square.  13 passengers were killed, who included a friend of one of March for England which is why they concentrate their respects at that site.

More passengers might have died but the doctors attending at the BMA HQ for medical business that day set up a field hospital in their courtyard and treated the injured promptly; as you can imagine the emergency services were hard stretched that day. We didn’t suffer the numbers killed as in New York 4 years earlier but lesser casualties were high.

The memorial moved a few years ago to a spot within the square garden on the other side of the road. This was said to be for the safety of visitors.

Flowers had been laid on the exact anniversary (last Thursday) by relatives, the BMA, the Mayor of the London Borough of Camden on behalf of the borough, and Transport for London.

On behalf of the New English Review I brought a posy of white chrysanthemums, pink daisies and carnations.  March for England laid red and white roses.

Photographs E Weatherwax London 2022