ABSTRACT

This chapter arises from the study 'conflicts of memory: commemorating and mediating the 2005 London Bombings'. The 7/7 bombings were among the worst terrorist incidents in post-war UK. The bombings took place the day after the announcement of the awarding of the Olympic Games to London. A series of interviews were conducted with persons who were directly affected by the bombings. The chapter discusses material that comes from three of those interviews, all of which were with survivors of the blasts. Rachel North and Susan Harrison were both travelling on the Piccadilly line train on which Germaine Lindsey detonated his bomb. The personal memories of survivors of the bombings are, of course, individual in the sense that they are bounded by their own unique spatial and temporal perspective on the events. Survivors carry forward an embodied connection to 7/7 in the affective work they do with one another, such as discussing their anxieties about particular sensations.