Letters to my sons.

Dear Son,

on 7th July 2005 the Olympic Comittee decided to bring the Olympics to London and right on our doorstep. In 2012 we’ll be watching some of the top sports people in the world. On the way home on the train the whole of London seemed to be buzzing, the place had an excited air about it.

Next morning the buzz was still there, everyone seemed so relaxed and happy. As I walked through the square outside Stratford station TV and radio crews were interviewing local people including the Mayor of Newham and the ex-MP for West Ham, Tony Banks.

As I approached the entrance to the station an alarm went off and the staff started to clear all the platforms. I thought this was just someone smoking where they shouldn’t be so I waited near the entrance. Then it started to rain so I found some shelter with the few hundred other people waiting for the station to re-open.

Your mother rang me and told me that the whole tube system had been closed because a power surge had caused an explosion at Liverpool Street. I decided to get a bus at that point and got the 25 which was heading for Oxford Street. On the bus I checked the BBC website and they said there had been 5 explosions – all due to a power surge. It was 9.30am when I got on the bus and progress was slow, there were loads of cars on the roads. As we passed the Royal London, I thought about your birth as that’s where you were born. The Air Ambulance was out and alot of sirens were going off. The bus driver finally kicked us out at Aldergate East as the road was closed by the police. Ambulances were going towards Algate three at a time, in full cry, and being replaced with three coming the other way – again in full cry.

I walked upto the police cordon and told the officer that I wanted to get to Moorgate, he told me that Moorgate was closed. (At that time it was thought that a bomb had gone off at Moorgate). He also told me that the whole of the City was closed. Then I saw the army arrive and I knew that something more than a power surge was going on. Your mother rang me at that point and told me about the bus that had had it’s roof ripped off. Power surges don’t rip the roof of a bus.

I rang work and told them I was going home and then took a look walk home phoning Grandma Caudle and Uncle Phil on the way home before the mobile network became overloaded with calls. By the time I got close to home my mobile was working again and your mother confirmed that bombs had gone off and people had been killed.

When I arrived home you seemed surprised that I had come home, you also seemed to have picked up on the tension of the day. We all watched the news together as we phoned around people to find out if they were okay and so they knew we were okay as well.

As the day drew to a close I switched the television off and you fell asleep in my arms. I lay back on the bed and you slept on my chest. The tension in you was clear, as you fell asleep your hands were in tight fists but as you relaxed your hands opened and body relaxed. As I watched this I thought how I could ever explain the events of the day to you, how we went from being on a high on Wednesday to a low on Thursday. How do I explain the motives and mindset of people who kill without a second thought?

We have to go back to basic principles: is it ever justified to kill someone who poses no threat to a persons life or safety? No it is not. People who kill the innocent will always make an excuse for their actions. It maybe that they don’t want a rival idiology to take over a certain country so they feel justified in bombing and spraying a huge area with chemical weapons. It may be that one ethnic group don’t like another so decide to wipe them out.

The group that carried out the London bombings will no doubt have their excuses and justifications – they will make no logical sense and will be accepted only by the same self deluded people what believe that killing the innocent is okay. Well that’s not true because most of the people who condem the attacks have supported the killing of innocents in the past – except these innocents are a different ethnic group or live in a different country or it is beneficial to some large company for these people to be killed.

Before sending British troops into Iraq Tony Blair said quite explicitly that, as a result of the coming war, innocent people would be killed. But this was justified by Tony because he said the number of people killed would be less than the number killed every year by Saddam Hussein.

If the bombers are ever brought to court they should simply try and prove that by killing 50 odd people they managed to save the lives of many more. The judge would then have to find them not guilty and the country and the relatives would have to accept that they in fact saved lives.

Of course they didn’t save lives – neither Tony nor the bombers – they murdered in cold blood. The same as George Bush, Leon Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill …. the list goes on as do the (excuses) reasons.

No one in the media has suggested that the bombers have a defence or inhabit the same moral place as our own leader. That will never happen but there is one thing I know son, you will hear me shouting at the television as you grow up.