7/7 survivor: 'We all lost our innocence that day'

People stand together in London's Tavistock Square before the start of a nationwide minute's silence. Photo / AP

It was a day made up of little shards of silence. At 8.50am local time, at 9.47am, at 11.15am, at 11.30am, at 2.38pm, each a minute of quiet, punctuating a day of reflection. At memorials in parks, at stations and in cathedrals, people came together and remembered a day, a decade ago, when 52 innocent victims were killed in the London bombings.

Neither silence, however, nor the passage of time, can truly heal the wounds that were inflicted.

One of the most moving moments was during the afternoon ceremony of remembrance in Hyde Park. Emma Craig was a 14-year-old schoolgirl on the day that went down as one of Britain's worst terrorist atrocities. She was on the train at Edgware Rd that was blown up by Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the bombers. Six of the 52 victims were murdered here.

In front of an audience of about 400, including the Duke of Cambridge, and struggling to fight back tears, Craig said: "We all lost our innocence that day. Quite often people say, 'it didn't break us, terrorism won't break us'. The fact is, it may not have broken London, but it did break some of us."

She was one of a number of survivors, or members of the emergency services, who spoke of the terror that still haunted them, of the guilt that they survived and others did not. After her address, relations of the victims and survivors processed through the Hyde Park memorial to each lay a single yellow gerbera on the plaque, which records the names of all the victims. Bright flowers of hope and innocence. The Duke lay a bunch of half a dozen. It was the final remembrance of many that took place across London.

Flowers are placed during a service for survivors and relatives of the victims in Hyde Park. Photo / AP

The day started at the same memorial, under dark skies. Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson had paused, during another minute's silence, in front of the 52 stelae, the striking but simple steel columns, representing each victim, before they too laid wreaths.

Johnson said the 7/7 terrorists "didn't in any way change the fundamentals of London and what makes this city great".

As if to prove his point, Park Lane traffic continued to roar past as he, the Prime Minister and other dignitaries bowed their heads in silence.

The only concession was a slow trudge of cyclists dismounting and proceeding on foot along the Broad Walk. Police officers had stopped the stream of two-wheelers and asked them to not to cycle past the ceremony. And so, as the wreaths were being laid, in the background there was an honour guard of London commuters, lycra-clad and in hi-viz. Off to work, as they were 10 years ago.

A minute's silence was held at each of the four sites where the bombs exploded: King's Cross, Aldgate, Edgware Rd and Tavistock Square, where 13 people were murdered by a bomb ripping through the top deck of a number 30 bus.

At Hyde Park, Elza Blankenburgs, walking her dog, said: "My greatest emotion that day was that I was so cross, I was so cross that these people had done this to our beautiful city. I was so cross and so angry. And then you feel proud when everyone gets up and keeps going."

Her friend, Elizabeth Awit, added: "You know, London is not just made up of Londoners. It is made up of a collective spirit. And they all pull together when something like this happens."

Many Londoners were broken that day. But not London.