With regard to recent terrorist attacks in London, I wanted to say a few things.

Most of you will be aware that on 7 July 2005, there were bomb explosions between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street on the Hammersmith & Circle line, between King’s Cross St Pancras and Russell Square on the Piccadilly Line, and at Edgware Road, on the Hammersmith & Circle line, as well as the bus bomb in Tavistock Square.

These explosions killed 56 people. My heart goes out to their families and friends. I simply cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a loved one to such an unimaginable act of violence.

At the time of the bombs, I was actually making my way to the Leonard Cheshire centre at Royal Oak, where we have an office. Royal Oak is actually only 2 stops further west from Edgware Road. I would have actually had to pass through those three tube stations to get to Royal Oak, coming from Hornchurch on the District Line to the east. Just before we got to Bromley-by-Bow, the train I was on stopped for about 20 minutes, and it wasn’t clear what was happening. Eventually, we arrived at Bromley-by-Bow, where everyone was instructed to get off the train. In fact, there was another train on the track at the platform as well, and everyone had to file out of the train through one set of doors.

I left the tube station and looked for a bus. There were buses running to Stratford, so I got on one intending to get the Central or Jubilee line to work. However, when I got to Stratford tube station, it was closed. By then I knew more or less what had happened, and I then decided to try and get to RAD’s West Ham centre. I was advised that it was within walking distance and that my colleagues Wendy and Sumita were there, so I walked there.

The plan was that I would get a train from Paddington to Newport at 18:15 that day. However, it was virtually impossible to get to Paddington because the entire London Underground Network had been shut down, including buses in Zone 1. So I ended up accepting a lift from Wendy in the car back to Aprile’s house in Hornchurch. The next morning, however, I woke up early, checked the TfL website, saw that the District and Bakerloo Lines were operating normally, so I left the house and got the tube to Paddington, and caught the 09:15 train home.

There were more bomb alerts yesterday, and I was at Leonard Cheshire (Royal Oak) with Laura and Andy. We were completely confused by news reports suggesting that the whole LU had been shut down again, and we were effectively being chucked out of Leonard Cheshire as they wanted to close the centre early, regardless of whether the LU was operating or not. Luckily, the Central Line was operating a normal service, as was the District Line, so I managed to get back to Hornchurch.

I’m working at home today, and have BBC News 24 on the TV, with reports of a shooting in Stockwell and police raids in Harrow Road and West Kilburn. When will it end?

What I don’t understand is; terrorists kill people to gather sympathy for their cause. They don’t seem to realise that rather than sympathy, they’re just hated. They don’t achieve anything, apart from martydom. Why bother? Surely nothing is worth a person’s life?