MINUTES

I was just re-reading the below article I wrote as I was thinking of submitting it into a few places but thought I may as well put it on here anyway….some of you (if you knew me back in 2001) would have received the first part of it as an email. The extra paragraphs were written for an article I wrote for a magazine over here at the time.

At 9pm on Thursday August 2nd 2001 I was in a pub called the Townhouse at Ealing Broadway. I was filming a Karaoke night for a documentary I was making.

At 11:54pm I was standing outside the pub talking to some mini cab drivers, trying to get a good deal on the cabs home. I asked the bouncer if the pub could stay open for one last song, reluctantly – he agreed.

At 11:57pm I went back inside the pub.

At 11:58pm The last Karaoke song started - a girl called Danielle was
singing "The Power of Love", surprisingly for Karaoke, she had a really good voice.

At 12:01am Danielle stopped singing - she stopped singing because a car bomb exploded in the street outside. The noise was deafening, all of the windows shattered, people started running towards the front door - all I remember is the DJ repeating the words "stay away from the windows" over and over again.

At 12:07am I was evacuated from the pub, lead through a fire door and had to walk over broken glass to get to safety. Outside was complete chaos - there were people everywhere not knowing what to do or where to go, smoke from the burning car filled the air, debris from the blast spread over 200 metres.

At 12:15am I was on a tube and it was then that I watched back the footage - chills ran through my body when I saw and heard what was on that tape.

At 12:35am I was sitting in reception at the BBC at White City.

By 12:50am The footage was live on air. TV stations & newspapers started ringing - they all wanted interviews - how they got my number, I don't know.

At 2am I was talking to a reporter called Wendy - she asked if I would be interviewed on BBC Breakfast News. I heard myself saying yes.

At 3am I got home and rang my Mum straight away - for the first time, at the sound of my mother’s concerned voice, I cried.

I sat up for the next few hours - questions running through my head - I wanted to know exactly what had happened. Who had planted this bomb? How had they gone unnoticed on the busy street? Why there? Why then? And most importantly- what were they hoping to accomplish?

At 6am after a sleepless night - I turned on the news and finally found some answers. A Saab had been packed with 40kg of explosives. 11 people were seriously injured. The real IRA was being blamed. The head of Scotland Yard was quoted as saying that the bomb was intended to "maim and kill". Thankfully it didn't do its intended job.

It was the lead story on the television and radio news - the front page of every newspaper. I realised the enormity and seriousness of what had actually happened and I cursed myself for agreeing to be interviewed, for agreeing to become part of all of this - I wondered what I could contribute to this situation?

At 7am a car came for me and I was taken back to the scene of the crime.

At 8:17am I was being interviewed via a direct link from the studio of the BBC Breakfast News - I answered the questions in my dazed and sleep deprived state and had absolutely no idea what I had said until I watched it back later. After that someone else approached me to do another interview – and then another and another. The whole experience was so surreal but I just did what I was told because it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

By 9am I was being driven home - I called my mum again and I cried for the second time.

I spent the rest of the day at home alone - thinking. If the bomb had gone off 4 minutes earlier when I was standing outside the pub - I would have been seriously injured or killed. If it had gone off 5 minutes later - the 150 people that were in the pub with me would have been on the street and they would have been seriously injured or killed. We are all lucky to be alive.

I know it sounds clichéd but that sort of shock really makes you think about everything. Put the "what ifs" and "if onlys" to one side and you realise what is really important.

In the four years since the bombing I have told my story a hundred times yet I still jump whenever I hear a car alarm or a loud bang. It was certainly something that I will never forget, something that has completely changed my life, for the better. The one thing that I'll never know is what strange twist of fate put me there in the first place and what stroke of luck got me out alive.