Although I'm an American and live in Texas these days, I sometimes think I may always be a Londoner at heart. I lived there in the early 1970s and again for a bit in the 1980s for graduate work, and go back to visit when I can. My kids have even expressed a desire to move there when the weather here gets too oppressively sunny. To me it's the perfect big city, like New York (which I was just visiting last week) with a more welcoming attitude, more kid-friendly and a lot less expensive to live in.
As everyone no doubt already knows, London was attacked by terrorists today. It was likely an Al Qaeda related attack, and so far has resulted in 37 deaths and as many as 1000 injured. Bomb violence has been part of London's history since the Second World War, but it has been some years since there was a major attack, and no single attack since WW2 has killed and injured this many people. The IRA did a lot of damage in the 1970s, but all of their attacks in the London area, including the Aldershot barracks bombing had a lower total of deaths and injuries than this coordinated set of attacks.
I was a teenager in London at the height of the IRA attacks of the early 1970s. I arrived during the crisis over the bombing of the Post Office tower, I was there during the Aldershot barracks bombing and I flew out of Heathrow at one point where my flight was delayed because they had to chase off IRA terrorists who were attempting to fire wire-guided missiles at planes that were taking off. The city was in a state of wariness through much of this period, but never a state of panic. In those days there were too many Londoners still around who had lived through the bombings of WW2 to be intimidated by a few terrorist attacks. They took note, they took precautions, but life went on.
Article comments
1 - Googo
who cares...I didn't see brits or americans mourning the casualties in fallujah. oh wait, they were darkies
2 - Victor Plenty
You didn't look closely enough, then. I saw many mourn the innocents who lost their lives in Fallujah, caught in the crossfire between those who want to see them live in freedom, and those who want them to remain enslaved to Islamic fundamentalism or dictatorship or both.
Millions of American and British citizens desire freedom for all peoples of any color.
3 - RJ
"who cares..."
Spoken like a true enemy of humanity and civilization...
4 - Dave Nalle
Well, that certainly was callous, Googo. I think most of us mourn any loss of life.
But my point here is one about survival. If a place is worth living in, if it has a soul, it will live on despite whatever horrors are visited on it. London will endure.
Dave
5 - Aaron
Dear Dave: I am a Chicagoan who as a 10-11 year old lived at 42 Maida Vale. I attended Barrow Hill School and then William Ellis grammar school. I hanker to visit London, to see my old stomping grounds, and wonder how Londoners now relate to the residents of two other cities I've lived in--Jerusalem and Tel Aviv--where, alas, public transport has been frequently targeted.
As a child in the mid-60s, I had complete freedom to raom the city, and my parents didn't worry a bit. I can only imagine that those days are long gone.
6 - Dave Nalle
Wow, I missed this comment the first time around. Did Aaron actually say he lived in the same building as me in roughly the same time-frame? Bizarre encounters of the internet...
Dave
7 - STM
Given everything that's been going on lately old boy, you might even have lived in the same apartment, slept in the same bed and used the same bloody toothbrush.
But yes, it's a great place all right, especially since Maggie Thatcher got the punt. I too have a nostalgic desire to return to London (or England, more specifically). Earl's Court, though, of course, and beautiful Kent - and the disgraceful pubs of Fleet St (which are sadly no longer full of mad journos).
And it'd be an even better place if it wasn't chock full of chooms :)