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London: Survivors of the London terror attack of July 2005 will gather on Monday to honour the 52 people who perished in the bombings, and Australians will join the memorial service alongside political leaders.
One Australian survivor, Gill Hicks, is expected to attend the service as she prepares to perform a one-woman show this week about her horrifying experience.
The wreckage of a double decker bus with its top blown off at Tavistock Square in London on July 7, 2005.Credit: AP
Four Islamist extremists targeted civilians with homemade bombs on July 7, 2005, in an attack that began at 8.50am as commuters made their way to work.
Three of the terrorists set off bombs on London Underground trains close to the centre of the city, while a fourth detonated a bomb on a bus nearby.
Sam Ly was killed on July 7, 2005.Credit:
Melbourne man Sam Ly, 28, was a passenger aboard the double-decker bus that was blown apart at Tavistock Square, near the British Museum.
Ly, a computer technician who had moved to London after working at Monash University, died of his injuries seven days after the bombings.
The Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, former defence minister Stephen Smith, will be among those attending the memorial service on Monday.
Details of the location have been kept out of the public eye in a sign of concern about violence two decades after the attack.
One survivor, Thelma Stober, told the BBC her thoughts were with the 52 people who did not survive the attacks.
Stober was on a train at Aldgate station when a terrorist next to her detonated his bomb. She lost her lower left leg.
A bomb-damaged Circle Line train stopped between Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations on July 7, 2005.Credit: AP
“If I could have amnesia permanently to eliminate everything about the incidents, I would,” she told the BBC.
“Although I lost parts of my body, I am still here to tell the story, to represent those who are not.”
Hicks was on her way to work on the Piccadilly line of the London Underground when a terrorist nearby detonated his bomb.
She lost both her legs and waited for an hour with hundreds of others in thick smoke until rescuers could find their way to the train and bring the survivors above ground.
London bombing victim Gill Hicks in 2015.Credit: David Mariuz
Years later, after returning to her home town of Adelaide and having a daughter with her partner, she devised a one-woman show called Still Alive (and Kicking) to tell of her experience.
Hicks performed the show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival four years ago and won a $10,000 award that allowed her to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She performed it again in Adelaide earlier this year and takes to the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall in London this week.
Another Australian victim, Louise Barry, was on the bus when one of the terrorists set off his bomb on the deck upstairs. Her neck was broken and she spent months in hospital.
Prime Minister John Howard speaks to Louise Barry in a London hospital in July 2005.Credit: AP
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When then-prime minister John Howard visited London weeks later and spoke to some of those in hospital, Barry challenged him on whether Australia’s part in the war in Iraq was linked to the bombings.
Howard argued that the motivation of the London terrorists was the same as the motivation of those who committed terrorism attacks before the invasion of Iraq, such as the Bali bombing in 2002 and the September 11 attacks in 2001.
“And that is a perverted, twisted and totally immoral depiction of extreme Islam,” he said in London in July 2005.
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