Britain will fall silent on Friday to remember the 52 people who died and hundreds more who were injured when four suicide bombers blew themselves up on London’s public transport system exactly a year ago.
A day-long series of prayers and commemorative events has been planned to pay tribute to those who lost their lives, including the reading aloud of every victim’s name at what is expected to be a poignant memorial service.
London mayor Ken Livingstone, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and the British capital’s transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, begin the tributes by laying flowers at King’s Cross station at 8.50am.
The timing coincides with the first of three explosions on London Underground trains; the location reflects where the home-grown Islamic extremist bombers arrived by train and parted on their brief, but deadly, campaign of terror.
More flowers will then be laid at Tavistock Square at 9.47am, the exact time Hasib Hussain detonated the fourth bomb on a packed number-30 double-decker bus as commuters sought to avoid the unfurling chaos underground.
At 11.30am, memorial plaques will be unveiled at five locations: Tavistock Square; Aldgate station, where Shehzad Tanweer detonated his bomb; Edgware Road station, where Mohammed Sidique Khan exploded his; and at King’s Cross and Russell Square stations, between which Jermaine Lindsay blew up his device.
A national two-minute silence forms the centrepiece of the commemorations at midday, signalled by the ringing of the famous Lutine Bell at insurance underwriters Lloyd’s of London.
Bereaved families and survivors have been invited to visit the sites in the afternoon and a private service at St Ethelburga’s church in the City of London financial district at 3pm.
But it is the 30-minute memorial service in Regent’s Park at 6pm that is likely to be the most painful for those caught up in what is the worst terrorist attack on British soil.
More than 1 000 people are expected to attend, including Marie Fatayi-Williams (51), from Nigeria, who lost her oil-executive son Anthony in the bus blast.
Fatayi-Williams, who has expressed a desire to meet the mother of her son’s killer and for them both to denounce terrorism together, is one of a number of relatives who will read poems at the ceremony.
Songs to be sung by the London Community Gospel Choir include Labi Siffre’s anti-apartheid anthem (Something Inside) So Strong and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water before the names of the victims are read aloud.
Families and survivors will then complete a floral tribute, 12m across and designed in the shape of a flower with seven petals to symbolise the date of the bombings, placing yellow gerberas in the centre.
Security will be tight in London and extra police have been drafted in, although Scotland Yard has said there is no specific intelligence of any threat.
The commemorations come just a day after the release of a videotape featuring a message from Tanweer and al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, plus continued calls for a public inquiry into the atrocity. — AFP
