7/7 Ten Years On: The Challenge Is To Not Let It Define Us

I am a woman, a daughter, a sister, a friend and a slightly-better-than- average badminton player. I am a writer, a performer and an improviser. I am bad at making bread but good at eating toast. I am made of my experiences. Everything that has ever happened to me has shaped me, and that includes the events of 7 July 2005, when four terrorists thrust London into mourning. I was there when our city stopped.

Ten years ago this week, I was on the train at Aldgate station with my then partner, Matt*, when a suicide bomber struck; one of four who, in quick succession, brought London to a shattering, disorientating halt. We were whispering made-up stories about the other commuters when the bomb exploded in the middle carriage. We’d wandered down the platform to the front in that vague way you do when you see you have two minutes to wait for your train. If we hadn’t, we might not have survived. We were very lucky. I still think about those who weren’t and feel tremendous guilt for having escaped with only minor injuries.

One of the things I remember most clearly about that day is how weird it felt to be talking to other passengers; that never happens on the Tube. But in the immediate aftermath, everyonecrouched on the floor together, all breathing through a French woman’s long scarf to filter the smoke. We were rescued after 40 strange, scary minutes by the amazing train staff and fire service, at which point we began to understand what had happened.

After talking to the police and drinking sweet tea in a large car park I’ve never been able to find again, we started to walk home. We were surprised at how soon we were allowed to leave, but there was no coherence, no post-disaster palliative care, only chaos. We ducked into a Sainsbury’s and stared at our faces in the mirror of a toilet. They were black with soot. We asked each other if we were OK, but neither of us knew the answer. A man in hi-vis told us we weren’t allowed to be in there together and asked us to leave. I guess the news hadn’t filtered through yet.

In the following days, London felt like a different city to the one I’d woken up in on 7/7. It was reeling from the realisation that power and privilege can’t protect you from everything. We were terrified, but had to carry on. It felt so strange to see images on the news for weeks afterwards and tell my family, ‘I was there.’

Over the next few months, I found it increasingly difficult to ‘get on’ with life. After struggling to get back on the Tube – and function in London generally – I ran away to Wales; another snap decision that was to shape my life. I had post-traumatic stress disorder, bringing on anxiety attacks and depression. I was offered counselling from Victim Support. I hadn’t identified myself as a victim until then.

I’d seen the bombing as almost a near-death experience, when actually it was a near-being-killed experience. This wasn’t an accident and, suddenly, it felt personal. Someone had wanted to end my life as a symbol of the things I unwittingly represented. I became obsessed with ‘my’ bomber, Shehzad Tanweer. I found out we were the same age. I used to imagine having a conversation with him in the pub. I wanted to go back in time and talk him out of it, or just to hear him explain why he’d done it. How could two people who’d grown up in Britain have such different perspectives? I felt like we had so much work to do as a society to understand why this had happened. And I felt useless in terms of my part in this.

I lived and worked in Wales for a few years and got my head together, trying to get over my anxiety attacks and improve my writing. My relationship broke up after a few years, but I think of Matt often. We shared something so strange, and I’ll always remember how brave and kind he was that day. No one else aside could fully understand what it was like. Some got it more than others, but having no physical injuries made it difficult for people to have any sense of the impact it had had on me.

Five years ago, I decided that one thing I could do was tell my story. By writing a solo show I was able to take ownership of both content and context. I started to feel less like a victim and more like someone who was incredibly lucky to be alive. Called Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You, I performed the show at Edinburgh Fringe, then on a tour of the UK. I adapted it into a play for Radio 4. It was a coming-of-age story that asked how we put things back together after they’ve been blown apart. It was about me, but it was also about London; the city I might always have a difficult relationship with.

After the shows, people would often come up and tell me their stories from that day. On one such occasion it was a lovely fireman who’d been first on the scene at King’s Cross. He described me as a survivor; the first time anyone had done so. It sounded better than victim, but felt disingenuous. Survivor has connotations of strength and empowerment, which made me feel like a fraud. There were other people who’d had to be much braver than me that day. They were the survivors. I was just someone who was there.

I’ll always think about that day, but I’ve learned not to let those thoughts overpower me. After writing the show I no longer need to talk about it, but also struggle less when I’m asked to. Ideally, a positive upshot of tragic events is that they provide us with a greater sense of perspective. Of course, sometimes having too much perspective makes the everyday mundane feel pointless. But we still have to live.

The experience has shaped my life, but then everything does – we are made of the suffering we experience. The challenge is to not let it define us.

Molly Naylor’s sitcom ‘After Hours’ (co-written with John Osborne) airs on Sky One this autumn

***This piece is from the latest issue of Grazia, out Tuesday ***