We stood up to be counted!

Flash Mob in Queens Square?

Sure looks like a flash mob. But no, there wasn’t any funny clucking like chickens, or doing of funny actions or singing. It was quiet, quite to the extent that it was eerie. All you could hear was the occasional baby crying, or the pigeons flapping about overhead.

So how did it start?





About quarter to 12, everyone non essential started to abandon their posts and offices and started trooping out into the corridor jamming into the few lifts that were still working. Those that couldn’t fit into the lifts started down the emergency stairs. It almost look like a fire evacuation.





Once they managed to get out of the hospital, everyone started trooping out in the same direction towards Queens Square.

It started as a trickle as people gradually moved out from the hospital to the square. I even spotted a frail old granny on a wheelchair that insisted to be pushed out to the square.





This was what the square looked like at 5 mins to noon. Initially, there were people catching up with friends and colleagues that they have not seen for some time, but suddenly, a hush took over the whole area. It was so quite. And it wasn’t even twelve yet!

At exactly noon, we could hear one solemn dong of the church bell signifying the start of the 2 mins silence. This was supposed to be a London wide 2 mins silence across the whole city. Buses and cabs came to a stop. Or that was the initial plan, but when the bell struck, even the other traffic had stopped as well. The streets about were silent except the quiet engine humm of the vehicles. No road noise at all. Eerie.

There was a successive chiming of the church bells to signify the end of the 2 mins silence. The hospital Chaplin and the hospital Imam got up to some little wooden platform (actually I think it was like the wooden bench at the park but nevermind, I was too far away to see properly) holding their hands and held it up high and took turns to give little speeches each which honestly, non of us could hear. We knew they finished because the crowd burst out in spontaneous applause which was very loud and gave the pigeons overhead a huge scare as you can see the whole flock take to the sky simultaneously.

Everyone then started to troop back to the hospital. I don’t think Great Ormond Street has ever been so crowded before.




As you passed the older building you can see that the union jack was at half mast as well.




We did our part. All those that could came out, stood in 2 mins silence to remember those that were injured or killed in the blast. Some said a quiet prayer in the silence; others gave thanks for their loved ones that escaped the bombs. We were all pretty much affected in a way or the other. Many travelled the Kings Cross to Russell Square route to work and would take the first carriage as that was nearest to the exit and also the interchange from the Northern Line at Kings Cross. And others that arrived in Euston would walk down along Tavistock Square towards work. Some of us knew colleagues that were hurt in the tube bomb, some of us knew some colleague that was still listed as missing and thought to be in the tube at that time. It was a solemn affair.

But despite all that, most of all, we came out today, to stand and to be countered. To show the terrorists that we will not be cowed by them or their actions!