It's not in my nature to be affected by such matters; but, for some reason, Monday night's tragic event has concentrated my mind more than usual.........
In 2005, I was actually in central London on the day of what has become known as the 7/7 terrorist incident. I had just delivered a new PSV vehicle to a coach operator in the coach park at Hyde Park when I was told of the attacks and, apart from an awareness of a collective sense of shock and horror which everyone was experiencing, my immediate personal response was to try to work out how to get home - bearing in mind the devastating effect the attack had upon the various transport systems. In the event, I found one of the few underground lines which was still operating and took a tube to Heathrow airport; from where I caught a Rail-Air coach to Woking and a taxi back to Guildford where I had left my car when I started my day's work.
One of the reasons I am mentioning that experience is to explain the fact that, having been so close to those attacks, I was able to see (and sense) the various effects - which ranged from mild indifference to something approaching panic - that event had on members of the public; and, on a more personal level, I have often speculated on the not unreasonable possibility that I may, months or years earlier, have actually delivered the bus which suffered the terrible effects of one of the terrorist's bombs.
Although in no way to a degree which can compare with that of the friends and relatives of those affected, I feel strangely (if indirectly) connected to Monday's tragic event in Manchester. I'm not sure why; but it may be because, after I left school, my first job was in the city and, later, I would travel through the city centre on a regular basis when I was in the army. I also spent quite a few years driving in, out, and around the city as a bus and taxi driver in the sixties and the seventies. And the final connection is that, tragically, the first victim to be named was a pupil at the same college that my elder son attended before going to university.
Such a tragedy that such a terrible atrocity could have involved such young children.
In 2005, I was actually in central London on the day of what has become known as the 7/7 terrorist incident. I had just delivered a new PSV vehicle to a coach operator in the coach park at Hyde Park when I was told of the attacks and, apart from an awareness of a collective sense of shock and horror which everyone was experiencing, my immediate personal response was to try to work out how to get home - bearing in mind the devastating effect the attack had upon the various transport systems. In the event, I found one of the few underground lines which was still operating and took a tube to Heathrow airport; from where I caught a Rail-Air coach to Woking and a taxi back to Guildford where I had left my car when I started my day's work.
One of the reasons I am mentioning that experience is to explain the fact that, having been so close to those attacks, I was able to see (and sense) the various effects - which ranged from mild indifference to something approaching panic - that event had on members of the public; and, on a more personal level, I have often speculated on the not unreasonable possibility that I may, months or years earlier, have actually delivered the bus which suffered the terrible effects of one of the terrorist's bombs.
Although in no way to a degree which can compare with that of the friends and relatives of those affected, I feel strangely (if indirectly) connected to Monday's tragic event in Manchester. I'm not sure why; but it may be because, after I left school, my first job was in the city and, later, I would travel through the city centre on a regular basis when I was in the army. I also spent quite a few years driving in, out, and around the city as a bus and taxi driver in the sixties and the seventies. And the final connection is that, tragically, the first victim to be named was a pupil at the same college that my elder son attended before going to university.
Such a tragedy that such a terrible atrocity could have involved such young children.
