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More than 1,000 gather to remember the 7/7 dead
Amar Singh7 Jul 2008
More than a thousand people gathered at King's Cross station today to mark the third anniversary of the 7/7 bombings.
Relatives of the 52 innocent people who were killed in the attacks stood side by side with survivors at the ceremony. They were joined by hundreds of commuters who paused on their daily journey to work to pay tribute.
Mayor Boris Johnson joined Tessa Jowell, the minister for London, to lay flowers outside the station at 8.50am, the time when the first three bombs exploded.
Mr Johnson laid a memorial card which said: "We honour the memory of those who died on 7/7 2005, we salute the courage of those who were injured and our thoughts and prayers are with all victims and their families."
It was at King's Cross where the bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18, set off on their terror mission.
Groups of survivors and relatives of the victims made pilgrimages to the sites of the four blasts - Russell Square, Aldgate and Edgware Road Tube stations, and Tavistock Square.
A low-key service attended by friends and relatives of the 7/7 bus victims was held in Tavistock Square. Graeme and Veronica Russell, whose son Philip Russell, 28, was killed on the No30 bus as he made his way to work that day, were among those who gathered at the service outside the British Medical Association building. Mr Russell said: " Anybody who loses a child is severely affected. It doesn't go away, the pain is just deadened."
During a memorial service at Aldgate station, the Rev Brian Lee, of nearby St Botolph's Church, led prayers for the seven people who lost their lives, and 171 who were injured, when Tanweer detonated a bomb on a Circle Line train at
8.50am.
Raj Babbra, 31, who lost his exgirlfriend Benedetta Ciaccia in the attack, has made a documentary to celebrate her life, which was being shown at University College London this afternoon.
He said: "I didn't make it to help with my grieving process, but it has. It has helped the whole 7/7 community."
A survivor of the Edgware Road bombing, Jacqui Putnam, 57, laid flowers at the station. "I return every year to lay flowers. It's very important. I don't want to be anywhere else on the 7th," she said.
