News & Politics - London marks 2nd anniversary of bombings

welshgirlyUK · 07-07-2007, 03:03 AM

Quote:

The second anniversary of the 7 July London suicide bombings which killed 52 people has been marked with a ceremony at a memorial garden to the victims.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London mayor Ken Livingstone and Olympics and London Minister Tessa Jowell were among those laying flowers in King's Cross.

Hundreds of people were injured in the attacks on three Tube trains and a bus.

Some victims claim they are struggling to deal with a complex and unwieldy compensation system.

The memorial ceremony was held at King's Cross station shortly before 0900 BST, when the first bomb exploded two years ago.

The prime minister laid a wreath bearing the handwritten message: "In remembrance and with deepest sympathy."

Quiet tribute

Other officials at the ceremony were London transport commissioner Peter Hendy and Tim O'Toole, managing director of London Underground.

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe - in London for the Tour de France Grand Depart - also attended.

He laid a wreath on behalf of the people of Paris whom he said "stood at one with London in our fight to protect the universal values of peace and democracy".

The officials bowed their heads in silence for several minutes, before relatives of the bomb victims came forward to lay their own tributes.

Organisers said there would be no national silence and, in line with the wishes of families, no large public event.

The act of remembrance comes as police and security services are on heightened alert, with a number of high-profile events such as Wimbledon, the Live Earth concert and the first stage of the Tour de France taking place in London.

George Roskilly, 64, who survived the Russell Square blast, said: "It was two years ago, but it is still relatively fresh in people's minds.

Source

I think it was really nice, low key and no big deal made just allowing the victims families and the public to remember it privatley and in there own way. There doesn't need to be a big ceromony for people to remember and be respectful and if thats the wishes of the families then i'm glad thats how it is.

**sunnykerr** · 07-07-2007, 01:00 PM

I'm glad it wasn't just shoved under the rug either. Obviously not in London, but I think there are other parts of the world who sometimes forget too easily the things they're not directly involved in. So it's nice that we could commemorate.

**TheAngel** · 07-07-2007, 04:30 PM

I was in Ireland during the bombings. It was pretty scary because I didn't know what effect it was going to have on our travel plans, and being so close to that carnage was horrible. Since European news doesn't have the same censorship that US news does, we saw a lot more on the news than we would have back home, which was good, but was also rough since we weren't used to it. My heart goes out to the families that are still suffering.

**sunnykerr** · 07-08-2007, 05:49 PM

Well, I haven't left Canada since it happened (just a fact, there's no corelation between the two things) and I still remember the images, too.

Every time we lose troops in Afghanistan, I'm reminded that the American news media, for better or for worse (and I'm not about to make myself the judge of that) censors a lot of their coverage, which is interesting because (from American networks we do get access to, here) there seems to be a heck of a lot more crime reporting and a bigger focus on terrorism in the American news.

Indian Summer · 07-08-2007, 08:09 PM

The American media's focus on terrorism is very odd, though. For instance, only certain threats are reported that generally don't hold much sway for most of the country (ie. the litebrites in Boston made national news, whereas the grounding of a bunch of Qantas flights between the US and Australia that were a real threat didn't).

Anyway, this is the way I think these things need to be grieved. There was a place to go for centralized grief and to commemorate the victims, but it wasn't made a spectacle of, either.


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