UK: Seven stories after 7-7

Seven stories 7/7: three years on

Bombs set off by Islamist extremists in the capital three years ago killed 52 people and the four suicide bombers. Many of those affected are still scarred by the experience. Seven of them tell Emily Dugan how they are trying to rebuild their lives

Sunday, 6 July 2008


Elaine Young, 49: caught up in the Edgware Road bombing


"Until February this year I coped fine. It was very much: 'I was in it, I got out, I'm OK.' I'm in the pull-your-socks-up brigade, so I felt it was lesser people who got stressed and didn't want to admit how I was feeling. That's not been a good thing.

One day in February I just collapsed. I had worked myself to death, doing 80 hours a week just to shut it out [Elaine suffered minor physical injuries but was left deeply traumatised by the sight of so many people dying around her]. The day it happened I was at work and there was a big bang outside my window – probably just a crane dropping a skip – but it triggered something. I jumped up and ran to the loo, staying in the cubicle for ages and ages. I'm a master of pretending everything's fine, but when I got back from work that night I thought, 'I'm not getting the train again'. I haven't been back to work since.

I get an awful lot of flashbacks and nightmares, and I often get several panic attacks a day. I've been trying to get counselling for my post-traumatic stress disorder but there's nothing there for people like me. There was a fund for victims of the bombs, but when I tried to get it in February the money had run out.

I went to the GP, who referred me to the local hospital, which then referred me elsewhere. Now I've got an appointment to see if I'm eligible for counselling and then I'll be on another waiting list. It's been months of waiting. I'm not hopeful. All I want is to be able to get back to doing things the way I did before."
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