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7/7 blast survivor walks 200 miles on prosthetic limbs to promote peace
Daisy Ayliffe18.08.08
A woman who lost both legs in the 7 July terror attacks told today how a 200-mile charity walk to promote peace was the hardest thing she has done.
Gill Hicks walked from Leeds - the city where three of the suicide bombers lived - to London to prove that people of different faiths can live together.
She was the last person to be pulled from the wreckage of the King's Cross bombing in 2005 and "died" twice on the way to hospital. Despite her injuries she has learned to jump, jog and climb stairs on the prosthetic legs her doctors fitted.
Ms Hicks, 38, said her "peacekeeping mission" kept her going as she walked up to 10 miles a day on the 30-day journey from Millennium Square in Leeds.
"My legs are detachable. I knew they would make it to London but I was not sure that I would," she said. "For me to walk from Leeds to London is probably the single most difficult thing I could ever have imagined. I still can't quite believe that I have achieved it but I never gave up because of the people who never gave up on me."
Ms Hicks, her husband Joe Kerr and the other participants in the Walktalk project, reached Trafalgar Square between 1pm and 2pm yesterday. The group had visited 22 towns and cities including Luton, where the bombers took the train to King's Cross.
The walkers were joined by Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and former Olympics hurdle champion Colin Jackson for part of the route.
Ms Hicks was supported by the Muslim community of Beeston, where two of the bombers lived, and visited mosques, synagogues and churches along the route. "The greatest thing about the walk is that we have been a catalyst for bringing people together," she said. "The memory I will take away from it is of the people - the different individuals who I know will now be very dear friends. I felt lots of discomfort but the exhilaration of achieving kept me going. I had one fall in St Albans where the ambulance service swooped into action. I fell quite badly and was bruised. The ambulance crew had to be there for me and I went in a wheelchair to rebuild and get back to where I am now."
Ms Hicks will nowmove to a new house in Camden with Mr Kerr and plans a period of recuperation. "I'm going to have a lot of gin and tonics and do as little as possible. I do not feel like a hero, everyone on the walk was very special," she said.
Mr Kerr, a 48-year-old teacher from Islington, said: "We've come on a small journey in the scale of things, but a large journey for us, of hope, of optimism, of reconciliation."
The couple were joined on the walk by paramedic Tracy Russell, 40, who was one of the first to arrive at the Russell Square bomb site. She said: "The walk was extremely emotional and I just can't find the words to express how I felt."
London deputy mayor Richard Barnes, who greeted the walkers in Trafalgar Square, said: "Gill was the inspiration behind all of this and she is an inspiration to all of us."
