Strange Week

It has been a strange old week. It started as normally as any other and then as the violence of the terrorist actions in Paris unfolded, it took me on a disturbing trip down memory lane. I grew up in London in the 1970s, police on every underground train and troops on the streets, trying to protect us from the bombs that seemed to be going off everywhere. A quick search on Google and I found mention of more than 40 successful terrorist actions in the 1970s in London alone. So we were always vigilant and even an innocuous abandoned umbrella would be cause to evacuate a station or a building. We regularly had drills and exercises at school and we knew what we had to do in a crisis and this was the way we lived for the whole of my adolescence and beyond.

This week has forced me to reflect how this still affects my actions and thoughts today, just little things like I am very uncomfortable standing near rubbish bins and containers and as for an abandoned suitcase, you won’t see me for dust, subconsciously I am always aware of where the emergency exits are and I check escape routes if I am ever talked into being in a crowd - something I normally try to avoid. I and all my friends got through it unscathed, although I had several near misses, I was on a train that left a station just before a bomb went off and also on a train that was evacuated because of a bomb at the next station, but that was life back then, it went on and we didn’t think it that abnormal, we were just grateful we didn’t live in Belfast or Beirut.

And as I heard stories this week of children locked down in their schools, it reminded me of the number of times that happened to us. One thing that is sad or reassuring (I am not sure which) after the first time, we weren’t scared any more and life and lessons went on as normal. The terrorists can kill and maim and cause disruption, but normal life will continue for the majority.

I don’t understand what makes people do these things, I never did and I never will, how can so much hate be in your heart that you want to kill, maim or just frighten people who have nothing to do with you and who are going about their daily lives, all because you have a grudge to bear - how is that right or just? Let’s pray that these misled souls end this stupidity soon and leave all the rest of the people of this nation to carry on their lives without the fear of being involved in an attack.

Marchers assembling as the sun goes behind the hill over Cluny

Saturday evening we went on a march in Cluny, a silent candle-lit march to show our defiance against these deluded morons. There must have been several thousand people walking but I am sure it won’t have any effect on these fanatics, they are too stupid or brainwashed to understand what freedom of speech and thought is all about, but if it makes one citizen feel a little safer, then it will have been worth it.

I just hope that another generation of children who are growing up in a civilised, democratic and, above all else, free country such as the one that we are privileged to live in, will not come to think of this barbaric behaviour as part of normal life, as I and my generation of London’s children were forced to do. But I do have my doubts.

People as far as you can see