Out of the Tunnel: first reviews

\o/ I have had some reviews!

dc007 was the very first reader review - commenting on this blog! (Thank you!)

(1)''It's a rare thing for my to start a book and not be able to put it down. Apart from opening a bottle of wine at 6.00pm, I haven't been able to stop (just realised I'm very hungry - just finished the book!)It is very easy to read and very addictive. It is, of course, a harrowing tale but also surprising witty in places, for example when the hippy goes to the toilet and the city executive takes her seat - 'I'm sorry I think that seat is taken' had me laughing out loud. It also makes me realise how tough it has been for you - something that never really came across as a casual reader of your blog.I really hope that this day - the second aniversary of what happened in 2005 has not been too much for you - your story is an inspiration and I think you need to prepare yourself now... This is definitely going to be on the bestsellers list very soon.''

Davide at Netherworld has the first ever blogger review...(thank you again D!)

(2)''In short, it's excellent. I couldn't put it down and had to put other things on-hold until I had finished reading it. It's not often I can say that about a book. Rachel describes the horror and confusion of July 7 in vivid detail. She also describes her struggle with the inevitable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that followed the bombings. Three years prior to being blown up on the London tube, Rachel had been viciously attacked, raped and left for dead in her home and this horrific episode is woven into the narrative. She was reading her own account of this assault in a magazine when her carriage exploded.

In fact I found the description of that attack one of the most moving parts of the book and I was wincing as every blow was recounted. Much of the book though is about Rachel's coming to terms with both of these traumatic events and the title, Out of the Tunnel is very apt. As the story progresses we see how these life-changing events transformed Rachel from helpless victim to strong campaigner and author. Rachel used the medium of blogging as part of her therapy and from this discovered and then honed her talent as a writer. One of the things this book does well is highlight the problems of PTSD which are not well known. Rachel was fortunate enough not to suffer serious physical injury on July 7 (unlike 800 other survivors of that attack) but the survivor guilt and the flashbacks had a detrimental effect on her job, her personal life and general well-being. If Out of the Tunnel helps people to better understand PTSD, then that alone is a valuable service.

This is a book I would recommend to anyone. Despite the awful experiences described, the overall message is positive. I was moved to the verge of tears on several occasions. Oddly, the times when I found my eyes welling up were when reading about the numerous acts of kindness from people either after the rape or in the aftermath of the bombings.
I urge people to read this book and I challenge anyone not to be moved by it.''

And amazon.co.uk has three reviews, all five-stars (including the one by Davide which is also on amazon),

(3)''If this book does not tear at your heart, nothing will. Hard to believe there can be such animals walking among us as to put another human being through what Rachel went through only a few short years ago and then to be in the midst of such terror as 7/7. Certainly, she probably could have been killed by both ordeals (and was literally left for dead following her attack). I am profoundly impressed by her ability to regain her sense of being, and her willingness to reach out to others. If it is the last thing you do today, you should get this book. I also want to agree with the reviewer below on PTSD, the book "One Unknown" and the book "The Convention". Each are about the horrors of terrorism and the human spirit to overcome. I do believe that we must have Angels on on shoulders, even during the darkest hours.''

(4)''This woman (Rachel North) has overcome more terror than many of us can bare to listen to on the evening news. Beginning with a person attack against her, which was extremely viscious and with no regard for her or her life, she overcame and used the experience as an inspiration to others. But that's not the end of the story. She was then nearly killed on 7/7 and healped other during that ordeal, and continues to help others to this day. There is a lot of detail in this book and I suspect that in some parts you will gasp. I think however, it is a testiment to her strength that she does the things to help others through very difficult times..

and Play.com has a single ( five-star) review too!

(5) ''I got this yesterday morning and read it straight through for 5 hours, I could not put it down. I cried 3 times in the first 3 chapters!The most amazing thing about this book apart from the story is how incredibly well-written it is. Usually books about survival are not as well-written as this, it is like a novel but it is all TRUE!
WARNING Some of the images she uses are disturbing and will stay with you because they are so vivid. That one woman can come through all of this is mindblowing.
I have never read a book like it.''

Out of the Tunnel is not actually officially on sale in shops until 13 July ( the launch, which is just going to be a riotous pub session with pals and blog readers is on 12th July in a Soho bar - email me for details, there's a few places left), so it was amazing to see it on shelves in Borders already, and to hear back from people who have actually read it. I will not deny that I have been absolutely cacking myself wondering what people's reactions will be. So it was and is a huge relief to get such positive responses.

And I would like to thank (again)my first reviewers for making me very, very happy and proud ( and a bit weepy). If you want to review Out of the Tunnel on amazon, play.com , or your blog, then I would be very grateful, and of course I will link and blog regular updates. I am sure that I will also get negative reviews - everyone does. And when I do I will have a stiff whisky, and kick things. But to be out of the blocks with reviews like this is such a wonderful feeling. Wow. I think a few drinks are on me...and I can't wait to buy them.

Tesco.com, and Waterstones.com also stock Out of the Tunnel which is available from all good book stores. I am being a good author and doing my publishing contract publicity uncomplainingly with the help of the nice Rachael from my publisher's PR company, Midas PR. So the book was serialised on Saturday, and you can also hear an interview on Capital Radio, and on BBC World Service Outlook ( which led to one of the most moving comments I have ever had, in this post from The Thinker)

More book reviews

I have belatedly checked my incoming blog traffic stats and realised that I owe another debt of gratitude to several more bloggers who have written some very thoughtful reviews of the book. I will link them in the side bar with the other blogger reviews and once again, say how very thankful I am to everyone who has taken the time to read Out of the Tunnel , and even more grateful to those who also opted to review it, on their blogs or on amazon.

First up Solaris, who has just started a new blog. Solaris first trailed the book and then wrote a full review here.

'Unleashed for a few moments from the chronology of her tale, we get a glimpse here of what this writer can do - and it's musical and rhythmic and evocative. She has novels in her.

And when she comes to write those novels, let's hope she retains the characteristic which makes 'Out of the Tunnel' ultimately so powerful - the third 'way in' to this book. This is its humanity, its compassion, its themes of the search for 'connection'. Its understanding of the unity and inseparability of us all and the unspoken longing we have to join with one another - to support and be supported, to understand and to be understood, to love and be loved.'

Next, my thanks to Victoria at Eve's Alexandria, who also trailed the book here and then wrote a full review here

'Her deft journalistic style captures the sheer horror of the moment: the confusion, the darkness, the panic, the unearthly screaming. It makes for devastating reading and, I'm sure, for devastating writing too. '

'...she lays herself bare with honesty and clarity, giving a window onto what it is like to be in the same carriage as tragedy. Certainly it is not the most polished memoir I have read: Rachel has a tendency to repeat herself, both phrases and episodes, and sometimes her chronology is confusing and confused. Occasionally, she inserts information too swiftly or without enough context. But I don't think this detracts from what is an incredibly raw, moving and ultimately hopeful personal account of the aftermath of the bombs. At times she perfectly captures the essentials[...] I whole-heartedly recommend it.'

Thanks to Stratford Girl , who follows Brennig Jones great review with another very thoughtful critique ( both Brenning and Stratford Girl also picks up on the repetition, which is both a fault of the book, and a symptom of PTSD which tends to induce a shocked, repetitive, tunnel-vision outlook)

'I would definitely recommend “Out of the Tunnel” to other people. Rachel’s words flow so easily. She describes the rape in such a powerful way that I actually felt scared. Her description of what happened inside the tube carriage on 7th July provides an insight into what it was really like for the people who were there. '

Secrets and Subterfuge has a very personal take on the book here, which I found very affecting. I won't quote, just invite you to go and read it.

And finally Pukecochic has written a beautiful poem for Mum, and my family.

Bless you all for your kindness. (If you have reviewed it and I haven't linked you, please let me know so I can sort that out as Technorati is a bit rubbish at picking up links). And to everyone else who has written to me, left comments, linked and sent good wishes over the last few weeks - thank you. I have been incredibly touched and moved by how people have reached out and I really am grateful. I am still writing back to everyone. It is pretty emotional. It is also a great privilege.

UPDATE: more reviews and reaction - Julie Howell

'I really hope many women will read Rachel North's book and see just how strong women are, and understand that Rachel is all of us. We are all capable of acting and reacting just as she did that day. What sets Rachel apart is the gift of speaking out, and speaking out 'in the right way' to make sure her story maintained its own integrity.'

and Lionheart, who is of a less liberal persusasion than I and makes some forceful points later on in his post

'If you have not read this book already, I can thoroughly recommend it. It just proves that despite the best efforts of the terrorists, even if they do cause deaths and horrific injuries, yet the spirit of courage and humanity will prevail.Us chaps are supposed to maintain a stiff upper lip, but there is absolutely no shame in stating that the tears were flowing whilst I read this book. Read it'.

UPDATE:More links! Thanks also to 'What's the Story in Dalamory'

'Out of the Tunnel is a moving account of survival by Rachel North. Harrowing stuff, but gripping with it.'

And a podcast, no less, by Parky London on This Week in London ( podcast 17)

Ready to speak out

I have been up since 5.15am going through all my box files, looking for evidence of when I was in contact with anyone official so I can present this information to the 7 July Review Committee today. They especially want to know about communication.

I am only going to talk about my own experience, not anyone else's even though I know a lot of other people's stories, because I want the testimony to be calm, taken seriously and non-emotive. Just the facts, backed up by evidence where possible.

I got to sleep at 1.30am. I couldn't lie down without coughing. This is the third serious chest infection since July 7th. I have antibiotics for it, again.

Somebody let off fireworks at around midnight. They sounded like bombs. I had a panic reaction and it was very hard to get to sleep after that. J was at work until 2am.
I feel wretched now, after so little sleep, and I can hardly speak without coughing; it is going to be hard giving evidence. But I am going to do it: I will get some codeine linctus to suppress my cough.

I have worked out that I gave my details out eleven times at least, possibly more, but by 24th October I was still, apparently, not on an official Department of Culture Media and Sport list of survivors, and nor were many other passengers. This is staggeringly incompetent: I and other people managed to climb out of a bombed train, find each other, look after each other, and now we have almost 100 survivors' names and details.We have executed a successful media strategy to tell people from our train that Kings Cross United exists, helped each other find counsellors, fill in compensation forms, find lawyers, medical help, dealt with hundreds of media enquiries, safeguarded ourselves from nutters and wierdoes trying to infiltrate the group, organised a 6 month memorial ceremony, set up a website, campaigned for a public enqury, liased with the police, all whilst holding down a day job and recovering from injuries and PTSD. And nobody has given us any funding: we haven't asked for it we did it all by ourselves, for free. Meanwhile someone, somewhere has a salary or a grant and a job decription that is about looking after victims of July 7th. I'd like to know what they are bloody well doing, frankly.

In haste, from my notes...

7 July: Gave name, address, brief statement to police at UCH hospital, had photo taken by police, got forensic bag for clothes at hospital.
9 July: Gave details to police hotline and brief statement when it came out on the news that the bomb was where I was standing, by first set of double doors of carriage one. It wasn't, it was by the second set of doors of carriage one.
10 July: Gave 4 hour police statement to 2 police officers who came to my garden. Handed over my 7th July clothing for forensic examination plus diagram of where I think the bomb was. They then confirmed I was right about the bomb.
12 July: First 'official' letter, from UCH A&E manager, expressing how sorry she was, giving details for trauma clinic, ear/nose/throat clinic, Disaster Action Charity, Assist trauma Care, Samaritans, Hep. B safeguards, what to do if wounds infected. Also detailing PTSD symptoms to look out for. The A&E manager is the only person who ever tells me she is 'sorry for what happened'.
13 July: Visit GP to check stitches, eardrums, chest/lung damage
18 July: Back to GP to have stitches removed. She asks if I have been contacted about counselling. I say no. I go on the internet and look, and I call Disaster Action, the charity recommended by the hospital. The volunteer is helpful and kind and tells me not to expect much from the authorities; how they and other survivors of disasters set up their own groups after tragedies like Hillsborough and the Marchioness Disaster. I tell her I am already in contact with other survivors and we are doing our best to look after each other.
19 July: Letter from charity Disaster Action with details of their website, and they tell me about the *Family Assistance Centre in Victoria. The name has previously confused me and other survivors; we think it is for families of the dead. ( Name is later changed to 7 July Assistance Centre and run by Department of Culture, Media, & Sport).
28 July: Visit Family Assistance centre with another survivor, having phoned ahead and left details. See a counsellor, from Victim Support, and leave details again. Also leave details with Red Cross.
By now I am in contact with ten other survivors: we have found each other through my writing on the internet. We have been to the Vigil, a week after the bombs, called, emailed and arranged to meet up. We meet at the end of July, one survivor, Jane sets up a website for us, we start a book of names and addresses and emails and make a plan of where we were all sitting or standing on the train when it was bombed. We start to share information. We call ourselves 'Kings Cross United'.

21 August: Find out about London Recovers, a website set up by another survivor from Edgware Rd. Leave details there.
23 August: Go down with severe chest infection and am put on antibiotics. GP is not sure of the cause, it is a hot summer. Could it be the toxic smoke I inhaled? I am sure that it is. I have read reports of asbestos and toxins in the fume-choked tunnels where we were trapped. I go on the internet and find out about the Health Protection Agency, a Government-run body charged with monitoring the health of survivors. I explain that we breathed in smoke possibly containing asbestos according to newspaper reports of those who went into the tunnel to recover bodies. Can someone check us out? Leave my details again and say I am in contact with 30 survivors, please get back to us. Call 7 July Assistance centre for a chat, leave details. Leave details again 2 weeks later.
26 September: After chasing *HPA, forms arrive and are circulated round group to fill in. NHS Trauma response also gets in touch with more forms. I and other KCU members fill them in.

Call 7 July Assistance centre for a chat. Leave details again.
(*I do not hear back from the HPA. I chase them in November, when I have yet another bad cough. Nothing - then they mysteriously send me another blank form to fill in, in December.)

October: Read in news that a Memorial service for the London bombings victims is to be held in St. Pauls. Call St Pauls, who say that the DCMS are organising it. Call the DCMS. Ask if survivors can attend. No, it is for VIPs. Then, yes, but they don't have our details. I send over mine and twenty other survivor's details to a helpful lady called Emma. Tickets are sent out.

November week 2: Some people who attended service are sent a letter and a tape of the service, I and others don't receive anything. How is this possible? This is very odd. They have, after all, just sent out 20 tickets to us and have all of our details.

December: Call 7th July centre for a chat. In an unguarded moment a member of staff tells me they had no funding over the summer, then in September the DCMS gave them funding for another year. The name change from ''Family Assistance Centre'' to 7 July Assistance Centre meant that they could not use the original database ''because of the data protection act''. So all the people who got in touch straight after the bombs and gave their details no longer exist and have presumably been left in the dark without help once more.
I get fed up. And now we hear there is no public enquiry. With this level of incompetence I can quite see why. I am asked to write an article for the Sunday Times. I talk to tube staff and other surivors about their thoughts and am disgusted, and I write the article.

Here is the article 'The July 7th questions that still haunt victims''.

And now I am off to tell everyone this stuff again. There are many reasons why a public enquiry would be a good idea and today, in this post, I have briefly touched upon a few of them today - the communication problems.

From the moment the bomb went off, it has been chaotic. I walked with thirty or so other survivors from the hell hole of the bombed carriage down the smoky narrow tracks in the dark tunnel to Russell Square, led by Ray, a brave co-driver of the train whilst his equally heroic colleague, Tom, stayed in the carriage and tried to help the injured. Other LU staff from Russell Square ran into the tunnel, despite not knowing if there were secondary devices or toxins or fire, and used their clothes, belts, hands to stem the bleeding of the maimed. From Kings Cross, LU ticket staff ran into the tunnel and detrained the passengers, whilst Steve, a British transport police officer forced the door into the first carriage andwas confronted by piles of bodies and injured passengers. Meanwhile as I was walking the other way out of the tunnel, I said to the other frightened people walking with me, 'Keep going, there will be water and nurses and doctors, ambulances and helpers when we arrive, just keep going...'. And we all walked, reassuring each other, trusting that there would be help when we got out. There was none, just a white-faced LU staff member handing us water. Outside the station, where I went to look for help, there were angry commuters trying to get in, and people photographing me, with my black face and bloodied stinking clothes, and a Japanese man filming the scene. An off-duty nurse called Anna tried to help me, I asked her to go and help the injured inside the station. Someone called an ambulance. It was 9.18am. I looked at the bone poking out of my wrist, the glass and metal embedded in the bone, and I called a friend to get me in a cab. The cab arrived at 9.40am. I tried to get others to come in the cab with me, but they did not hear me. Many people had blood coming out of their ears; they were deaf, like me, from the blast which had gone off in the middle of our carriage. Passengers stayed at Russell Square, in shock, whilst the injured were carried from the bombed train. Station staff, passers by, and blasted passengers tried to help them. I feel guilty to this day that I did not. The grille doors of the station closed behind me. I got in the cab, and almost fainted.

Ambulances did not arrive at Russell Square until almost 11am, when they arrived they didn't have the right equipment, because they had been to the other bombsites first. Some were driven by volunteer crews from Essex. They did not have radios which worked when they were out of the vehicles, and their mobile phones did not work. University College hospital is 6 minutes away.

I stepped through the doors of UCH and said there had been a bomb. I was one of the first to arrive. They got the glass out of my wrist, sewed it up, made me stay. I didn't want to stay, I knew they would need all the staff they had for the injuries coming later. Half an hour later, more bloodied people arrived. A man was screaming that his leg was gone. I looked, he was naked from the waist and his leg looked like raw meat.

When I got home ( walked with J, then was picked up by a friend at 6pm from Camden), I wrote my story of the 7 July, missing out all the horrible details ( and I still to this day censor what I saw) - on the net. Other survivors got in touch. We emailed, talked, went to the pub and we looked after each other. There are a hundred of us now. We still email, still talk, still go to the pub; we still look after each other.

We passengers have helped each other since the minute the bomb went off. When is someone going to take responsibility for helping us?

Right. Off to the meeting....

Update
'Today Someone Finally Listened'- Fellow-passenger Holly
'Today at the London Assembly' - Fellow Passenger Hamish
'Anger' - Fellow passenger Bumblebee
'Swirlyhead' - Fellow passenger Mitch
Thank you Justin and Curious Hamster , Londonist, Tim, Davide, Geoff, and also everyone who has signed the petition started by 7/7/05 survivors for a Public Enquiry ( click here if you want to sign - it is for anyone who wants to add their voice to the demands for answers)

This is local London report
BBC report
Sky news video
Channel 4 news
Guardian
Times
Sun

Out of the Tunnel latest reviews

Thanks this week to authors Caroline Smailes , Clare Sudbery, and Sarah Salway for their reviews of Out of the Tunnel .

Caroline says....

''Out of the Tunnel is a beautifully crafted and (in parts) a delicate account that pulls on the experiences of both Rachel and of her co-survivors.
Rachel North gives voice to other stories. She speaks of post-traumatic stress disorder. She informs. There is integrity within her honest account. Rachel's voice carries emotion and has a depth that pulls the reader into specific times and places.

Out of the Tunnel is a story that speaks of survival and humanity. I am full of admiration for Rachel. For writing such a brave and open account.
I will not explain how this book helped me and made me realise things about myself. Tear educing things. All that needs to be known is that this book forces opinion and reaction.After reading her words, I was left with the feelings of hope and inspiration.

I have a few words scribbled into the back cover of my copy of Out of the Tunnel.The words.
Inspiration. Hope. Horror. Bravery. Beautiful''

more here

(So Caroline, whose wonderful book In Search of Adam I reviewed here, have both made each other cry! But in a good way. If we ever meet each other we shall have to bring tissues)

Sarah said

''You never forget Rachel's a real person, not just a photograph or a news report, and that's the most valuable lesson for me from this book. The joy in just being ordinary - in being able to wish someone an 'ordinary year', in having someone look at your battered face and seeing, not that, but the ordinary, old non-perfect 'you' underneath the bruises. And there's plenty of joy in here too - in fact, that's what I was left with, a feeling of pride and inspiration. A great book.''

And Clare said

''You would expect her story to make you cry, and feel immense pity.

I didn’t. But I did find myself utterly gripped from the moment I started reading. I was carried along by this extraordinary woman’s ability to tell a story, by wanting to know what would happen next - despite knowing most of it already.

And far from feeling pity I felt admiration, and was inspired. She has felt anger, of course she has. And despair, and fear, and sick dread. But she has never drawn the conclusion that Islam is to blame, and the last thing she wants is to fear her neighbours. And despite the pull of pessimism, she tries to focus on the people in the dark. Those fellow tube passengers who never even looked at each other until they faced that horror together and held each other’s hands.

I consumed Out of the Tunnel eagerly, and what I got was an honest, touching and beautifully-written account, not just of suffering but of how to keep going and why, even if you have had your life threatened twice by random strangers, it’s still worth trusting your fellow man.''

Thank you so much for the amazing support. I have just had a very moving email from another fellow-carriage one passenger, who has read it as well, and it is such a relief to know that people who were there in the dark with me have read it and approve of it and want the story told.

A reader writes...

My book, Out of the Tunnel, will be out soon, in the second week of July. Proofs have been sent out to newspapers and magazines by the publishers, in the hope of it being covered or reviewed. Interviews have been pitched. All authors are expected to do publicity for their books, and I am no exception. It is part of the contract that you sign. You have to 'push' it. There are thousands of books published every year. Only a small percentage are 'successful'. 'Success' criteria being debatable in these days of store-driven discounts and multi-buys and the collapse of the net book agreement. You don't just have to tell it, you have to sell it, nowadays. Margins are too tight for talent or skill alone to see you through. It's a hard-nosed, cut-throat, high-pressure business. But you can take cynicism too far...

I discovered that some people were saying recently on a few websites and blogs that they thought the whole cyberstalker thing was a 'PR stunt to sell the book'. I didn't bother to argue, after I saw the accusation posted more than once, ( what is the point of arguing with people who think like this?) but for the record, no, it is hardly sensible to try and PR something that has not been printed, or to try to sell something that cannot be found on the shelves. A decade in advertising did teach me that much.

In fact, all the attendant hoo-ha over FJL was a real problem from the point of view of the book launch: the publishers would have much preferred the story, and me, not to be in the news at all, as it was seen as being very risky in terms of the book PR they were planning which is to start when the book is actually available. (Next month, not now.) I am still slightly staggered that a few people actually seem to think that I got harrassed for a year in order to sell a book that, at the time of the harassment starting, back in spring 2006, was not even conceived of, let alone written. Or the idea that I perhaps deliberately arranged to be attacked, bombed and then stalked in order to 'become famous'. Yeah, right. Hmmm...*I failed the Big Brother auditions in 2001, so I thought, what can I do for my next bid for attention...? I know, I'll get attacked by nutters...
* I didn't audition. Obviously. But sometimes I wonder if I have to spell this out.

The CPS and police made the decision to prosecute way back last year because the damn woman was harassing me and it kept escalating and she wouldn't stop, not even after being ignored, arrested, warned, and it was frankly scary...(And no. I didn't 'use it as material'. It is not in the book. Argh.)

I know why I wrote Out of the Tunnel. I wrote it because I was asked to write it. I wrote it because when I had PTSD the first time around, after the rape, I was frantic and desperate to find out what was happening to me, and to read the stories of other people who had lived through it. Accounts of violent sexual attacks by strangers, that's what I was looking for, then. Not really their graphic accounts of survival, but the aftermath. The days, the months, the years after, how they coped, what they felt, if they changed, if they healed. There weren't many books about afterwards, not back then.

Now there are whole shelves in Waterstones and Borders titled 'painful lives'. 'Misery memoirs', they're called in the trade. Child abuse, mostly, suffering and survival and horror and degradation. I have never picked one of these books up and paid for it and taken it home. I tend to read novels, not real-life tales. I wonder whether people will think my book is a 'misery memoir'. Maybe they will. I didn't write it like that. But I haven't ever read any of the white-covered books with wide-eyed children's faces on the cover and titles like Inside I'm Screaming and Stop, Mommy, No. So I haven't anything to compare my book with. I just wrote what it was like, what happened, what happened after.I wrote things I had never told anyone before. Not on this blog, not ever.

'Did it make you feel better, writing it?' friends ask me, hopefully. Sadly, no. Writing it was an absolutely grim experience, and it set off the PTSD again, big-time, and it made me depressed and anxious, and what with the stalker as well, and having suddenly stopped working in an office where I used to laugh and chat all day, it was a pretty horrible time. Stressed as hell, on my own all day, writing and re-living the worst moments of my life, worrying about the effect it was having on me and people I love and respect, and the abusive messages from that strange woman pinging into my in-box all the time, it was frankly, awful. I was pleased when I had finished it, in the same way I am pleased when the painkillers mean the headache has gone. Re-reading the proofs last week was almost more than I could stand. If it had not been for my publisher's patience, and the kindness of David, my agent, who lent me his office to work in, so I had space and peace, and a vase of spring flowers, so I could escape the demented cyber-bombardment and the loneliness of the cold empty flat, the book would never have been finished at all. It is all new content; the blog provided the notes, but it was written as a book, from scratch. Hard work.

'But it will make you lots of money, eh?' people say next. Nope. In fact, my earnings have dropped by more than 80% since I took voluntary redundancy and became a writer. If I make any money on this book, I won't be paid it until March 2008. My redundancy money will have run out long before then. It's almost gone now. Big Fat Advance? Ho ho. Put it this way, if I hadn't taken redundancy there was no way I could have written the book. I would have run out of money after six weeks. And the book took quite a while longer to write than that.

So why did I do it? Because, in the end I had to. I wrote it to pay tribute to the people who helped me and inspired me, including my fellow-passengers. And I wrote it for myself. Myself as I was in 2002, after the rape, and myself as I am in 2007. I couldn't not write it. I want to write, it is all I want to do, now, it is the thing that is most meaningful to me, even though it will never provide me with an advertising director's nice salary and an expense account. But perks and salaries stopped being important. I wanted to start off being a writer by writing my own story first, so it was gone, and done and out there and I could let it go, and move on to writing other people's stories, fiction, new things. I want to write for the rest of my life. But not just about bombs and terror, not any more.

And I wrote for this moment: My first written reaction from a reader who has read Out of the Tunnel. A man whom I like and trust and admire, a commissioning editor on a big newspaper, Bob, who first commisioned me to write my story back in November 2005.

''I’ve just spent the past two hours reading the proofs of your book. I should have been doing something else, but I couldn’t stop because it’s brilliantly written and a gripping narrative. Congratulations.''

That made it, makes it all worthwhile. And now, I want to do more, write more things. I'm still pushing for an independent inquiry into 7/7, with the other survivors and families in the group. I'm also working on a novel, slowly. Doing freelance stuff. It took a bomb going off to start me writing, but now I can't stop. I hope that I can keep writing, make a living from it somehow, but even if I can't, I won't give it up, because writing has kept me moving forward, one foot in front of the other, got me out of the tunnel and into the light. It saved my life, in more ways than one. And it was you readers, you people on the internet who read my stuff and sent support, and cared enough to come back, and kept encouraging me, that got me writing and kept me writing.

There's a dedication in the book to you. You know who you are. Thank you.

Hero of the Year now an M.B.E

Steve, the British Transport Police Inspector who you may remember me writing about before phoned me up to tell me he is getting an M.B.E from the Queen in the New year's honours list!

Here is Steve looking very serious.

I had read on BBC news online about Steve - and later I found out more, which is quite hard because Steve is an extremely modest man. On July 7th, Steve was on duty at Kings Cross as part of his G8 duties. He heard the explosion beneath his feet, he hurried straight to the platform when he saw smoke billowing out of the south-bound Piccadilly line tunnel. He told his younger colleague Gerard, to stand guard and wait in case he didn't come back, in which case to report him as a casualty and seal the station. Steve then began running into the smoke-filled tunnel to help the people of the Kings Cross train, not knowing whether he was running into a fire or a second set of bombs or a biological attack - just running to help. Heading straight into danger.

I badly wanted to meet Steve, and so did many of my fellow-passengers, and we were delighted when we finally met him. The first time I met Steve was on November 1st, the day of the Memorial Service. Earlier that day, I had grabbed an official-looking copper chap with lots of silver bits on his uniform (who turned out to be the Chief Constable) before the Memorial Service, asking if he knew Steve and if so, he must let Steve know that Kings Cross United wanted to buy him a drink. I am pleased to say that the Chief Constable did indeed pass this message on faithfully, and Steve came to the pub and met lots of grateful passengers from the train. I showed Steve the KCU book we have where we marked where we stood on a plan of the train. Over 80 people's names are there, across five pages.

'Look at all those names,' I said, 'you helped them all get off - they're all here - because of you'. It was all very emotional and Jane and I ended up leaping on Steve and giving him a hug.

Since then Steve has been a member of Kings Cross United and we are extremely proud to have him amongst us. It is his calm voice saying 'Ladies and gentlemen, I am a police officer' that so many of the passengers remember as the first thing that gave them hope as they stood trapped in the smoke and darkness deep underground, not knowing if anyone official knew about them, waiting to be rescued because they could not get off the train trapped in the narrow tunnel.

Steve got all the passengers who could walk safely off the train, and Gerard who had been told to stay behind and had to wait anxiously on the platform could then take over and help them, which he did brilliantly, and the July 7th rescue operation began to swing into operation. Steve then made his way to the last carriage of the train - carriage one - forced open the damaged interconnecting door, and saw 'what no amount of training will prepare you for' and what he 'will never talk about, out of respect for those people and for their families'.

There were still some people alive on carriage one though, who were not able to evacuate through the driver's cab or through the back of the train. Steve had to tell them that he had to leave them but would be coming back with medical help. It was he said, 'the hardest thing I have ever had to do' and 'went against my moral fibre'. But Steve on his own couldn't help the injured, and the decision he made to leave them to bring help for them was absolutely the right thing to do.

Still extraordinarily hard though. Steve and Gerard were later given the highest possible honour award from the British Transport Police (and after that, some of Kings Cross United had lunch with them and the Chief Constable and the Deputy Chief Constable and had a chance to thank the officers and the police force formally.)

So this entry at the end of an extraordinary year is dedicated to Steve, Gerard, Tom the train driver, ( who are all in KCU) David the Russell Square station supervisor who also ran into the tunnel to help, Carrie and Anna the passing nurses from Great Ormond Street hospital who ran to help the injured at Russell Square platform, Aaron and the rest of the crew of Blue Watch Euston and Soho fire service, and all the people I don't know the names of or haven't met who helped us on that day.

Thank you so very much. There aren't really words.

The other July 7th helpers who have been honoured can be seen here

One year on

Picture from BBC website
Yesterday was a private day, didn't talk to any cameras, wanted to be with people who were on my train, and J, who has put up with all this for a year, and who was able to join me in the evening .

Got up early, thought about last 12 months, posted, then travelled into London on the Piccadilly line tube, in the first carriage, same spot that I had stood on 7th July a year ago. Just like last year, the weather was rainy, the carriages were very full, the trains were late. The first train I got on I had to get off again, before it departed Finsbury Park, where I start my journey, because there was an angry man with a rucksack who spooked me, but I did get on the next one. It was a hot, crushed, and for me, frightening journey, but it had to be done.

Nobody was reading about 7/7 in the newspapers. They all had the page open at a different story.

As we went through the tunnel, I watched through the window as we left Kings Cross until we got to the spot where the explosion happened. You can see exactly where it was, because the electric cables on the side of the tunnel which were destroyed by the bomb in the centre of carriage one, have been replaced and are a brighter, less dirty red. I said a prayer. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. It was so dark there. Then I got off at Russell Square, a bit shakey, feeling a sense of relief.

I met people from KCU. There were lots of police and some cameras and news crews, but we avoided the media. This was one day when I needed to be just Rachel.

We went back down to the platform. I stood with other people from carriage one at 8.50am in silence for two minutes, with Dave, who was the station supervisor at Russell Square on the day. There were trains running, instead of a bang, silence, then screaming.

We stood at the end of the platform, looking down the dark tunnel, where we had been pulled from the tracks by LU staff after walking 500m from the smoking ruins of the carriage a year ago.

We met a nice springer spaniel who was on bomb sniffing duty and his handler. (I used to have a springer called Dipper, she was a lovely dog but her contribution to public safety was minimal. But I loved her more than any other dog I ever had.)

Afterwards we went to a hotel with Dave. Dave wasn't on duty yesterday, but he had come in in uniform to help, as he had helped on the day, running into the tunnel when he heard the explosion, passing us all walking out led by the co-driver, and went into the carriage to give first aid, using his clothes as tourniquets to save limbs and lives until rescue came. Dave is one of the people who says 'anyone would have done it, and I would do it again.' London is a proud city because of people like Dave.

We talked to other people from carriage one and the families of those who had lost someone, dying feet away from where I stood. I met a lady who had seen me when I came out of the station. She had been shocked by my appearance, covered in blood and soot and glass. She told me of twelve months of nightmares and guilt because she had peeped inside the station ticket hall and seen people with terrible injuries, and dead bodies, lying there, and she had been haunted by it all year. We hugged. I didn't realise I looked so bad, back then. I thought I was very calm. She said I was too calm, that I was 'like a zombie', shuddering, 'and the whites of your your eyes were black, you looked half-dead. Like you had come out of Hell.' She cried, remembering.

Then we met up with KCU ( Kings Cross United survivor group) people from the rest of the train who had been to Kings Cross earlier, at a hotel near St Pancras church. At 12pm we stood near Tavistock Square away from the cameras and people in silence for 2 minutes. 26 of us held a balloon each, one for each innocent stranger who had died on our train. They flew away into the sky, staying together, until they were tiny specks that could no longer be seen. Tavistock Square is a place of peace, and between Russell Square and Kings Cross. I thought of the victims of all bombs, everywhere, especially those 52 who died a year ago.

At 12.30pm some of the group went to the inter-faith service at St. Pancras. I didn't, because there were cameras there and I am recognisable at the moment. I had been to a beautiful service in St. Ethelredas last night instead which was private, and attended by survivors, including seriously injured, rescuers and bereaved. And yesterday lunchtime, I had been to St. Pancras and heard a concert, and said a prayer for those affected by terrorism.

I stayed in the hotel instead and had lunch and drinks with people from the train who have become dear friends over the last year. It was an emotional afternoon, but mixed with the sadness and guilt and terrible memories was a sense of hope and of new beginnings, and relief that we had made it so far, together.

In the evening we went to Regent's Park where I met some bereaved families and survivors from other sites who I have got to know over the year. As soon as the London Community Gospel Choir began to sing Something inside so strong, I cried. I hid under my hands and hair but everyone was crying, and the cameras were not zooming in on faces in the crowd, so it was ok.

After the beautiful ceremony we laid flowers, and that was the hardest part of the day, walking past members of the public, when I could see so many of my friends were crying. Long lines of people, all thinking of those hurt or killed. J was with me. he held my hand. Tissues were passed up and down the row of survivors.

Then we walked away, walking through the sunlit park as evening fell. There was a tremendous sense of release. We went to a pub and bought each other drinks in the evening sunshine. A normal, jolly Saturday night, Londoners spilling out onto the pavement with pints, looking forward to the weekend.

It was over, now I can walk away from it all, I hope, and look to the future. Thank you for all the messages I found when I came home, a little drunk, hungry and with a lighter heart. Thank you for all the support I have had from friends and strangers over the last 12 months. It means a very great deal.

I will continue to ask, with others for an inquiry into 7/7, because I think it is the right thing to do. I will keep writing, and I am looking forward to a future with my family and husband-to-be, my friends, including new ones I have made.

For the next KCU social meeting we made plans to go dancing.

Kings Cross United 6 months on

Photo shows The Wounded Angel of St. Pancras church, dedicated to the victims of the 7th July bombings, and flowers underneath left by some of the passengers of the 8.50am Piccadilly line train 311 that was suicide-bombed, ( 'Kings Cross United') the staff of Russell Square and the British Transport Police officers who rescued the passengers, and the drivers of the train.

Yesterday, we all met at Kings Cross station at 3.30pm, carrying our flowers and trying to look inconspicuous, fearful of the media. There were about 30 of us. We were fortunate, the press and TV cameras had all gone to a 7/7 Remembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph, organised by People In Common I think. At least, that was where I suggested ITN went. We did not want publicity, and they did, so it worked out well.

At Kings Cross, we met Ranesh and Allen from LU, who explained that they had cordoned off a part of the Westbound Piccadilly line platform for us to say the words I posted in the entry below. We met up with David, the station manager of Russell Square, who ran into the tunnel to rescue us, and Tom and Ray the drivers of train 311, and Steve and Gerard the police officers who conducted the rescue & evacuation operation of the passengers entering from Kings Cross. All are now members of KCU. And we are very proud to have them in the group.

After a scare about football fans surging noisily and aggressively out onto the platform, we all went down. Even going down the escalators was emotional. Some of the group had not been to that station, or that platform since July 7th. We stood, protected by LU staff, right where the bomber and the 26 passengers who died had boarded the train. We read out the words, and we said together how 'We hold you in our thoughts'. We held our flowers. Many of us wept.

Then we left the station - still protected by the LU staff who were very kind - and we walked to the Parish Church of St.Pancras, where we were met by the vicar, Paul Hawkins who led us through the church to the garden where there was a statue in memoriam of the victims of July 7th. The statue was called the 'Wounded Angel' - a calm face carved in ( I think) quartz, wings suggested behind, the other half of the profile still unhewn and so appearing shattered.

Here we left our flowers and wreathes, and we repeated the' We are all fellow-passengers' meditation. I left 26 roses, one for each person who died.

We spent a little time in the church, sitting in pews and thinking or praying. Then we went to a pub on Euston Road. It felt for me, and for many, like a release of something, something that had needed to be done, that ceremony, standing together. I felt better afterwards.

Afterwards we went to a different pub in Islington, and had dinner together. New members, and people I have known since July, all laughing and chatting. We'll meet up again in February. One of KCU took more pictures; on our website there is now a gallery, carriage by carriage, of smiling faces from the train. We are lucky to be here, lucky to have each other, when we read out the list of the dead yesterday, when I spent yesterday morning re-reading about their lives, linking them on the blog, looking at their glowing, smiling, hopeful faces, I was so struck that it could have been any of us.

The bomber hated us all, he didn't care who died, he wanted to kill as many as he could. The more I know of people from my train, the more I look at strangers - anyone - and see in them a fellow passenger on a journey. One man on a train with hate in his heart and a bomb on his back, seeking to divide and kill, versus dozens of passengers drawing together, caring for each other, comforting each other, remembering the dead and injured and bereaved - and celebrating life with new friends.

Out of such terrible darkness, light has come.

As we said in the pub 'Take that, terrorists. Cheers'

*clink*

UPDATE: You can read fellow-passenger Holly's account of the ceremony here.

And thank you for the picture of the Wounded Angel of St.Pancras with our flowers left underneath, Holly.

I was very honoured to be contacted by the New Zealand family of one of the passengers, who said that it meant a lot to know that their lovely daughter was commemorated by her fellow passengers six months on.

Author Penelope Farmer reviews Out of the Tunnel

Author and publisher Penelope Farmer has written many wonderful books, two of which are old friends. Charlotte Sometimes is a classic children's book, about friendship, sisterhood and loss, and Eve: her Story is what Mrs. Milton might have written secretly whilst her husband laboured over Paradise Lost, a juicy feminist retelling of the oldest story of all.

Penelope has reviewed Out of the Tunnel on bookarazzi and here is her review.

''I managed to get hold of "Out of the Tunnel" while I was in London recently and can confirm everything Clare says. Rachel is a wonderful writer: how anyone can go through all that and end up so sane...It's also a complex story the thread of which she never loses and nor do you, her reader. What is so particularly impressive - and makes it much more interesting than it would be if the story had just stayed with Rachel herself - was the way she got together with other survivers, her emergence as a spokeswoman and campaigner. It's a compulsive read, you can feel the adrenaline - the pain - hammering off the pages; even the occasional repetitions play their part in that. As does the understanding of Islam she already had and uses - that's very important - and still more the intelligence which she brings to the aid of fine writing to knit it alltogether. Add to that a novelist's eye for detail: for conveying what her senses tell and told her, for communicating other people - and animals... Oh I did so like her cat!''


Yay! Thanks so much Penelope! There are now 7 reader reviews on amazon, including two from fellow-passengers, one review on Waterstones, and two on play.com, as well as the reviews in the sidebar from bloggers Netherworld, Rachel, Hendo and authors Clare Sudbery, Sarah Salway and Caroline Smailes . All reviews by readers so far have been extremely positive which is fantastic. I've let the good people of urban 75 know that the book is out as well. Urban 75, a hugely popular London-based website is featured in 5 chapters, and played a key role after the bombings. There is a dedication to urban 75 in the book.

I am extremely grateful to all my reviewers so far, and to anyone who feels like reviewing it on amazon, play, waterstones or their blog. I'm going to see if I can get some blog buttons made as well.

Note: The book is not available in supermarkets or WH Smith, only in book shops, like Borders or Waterstones, or online (although you can order it from stores that don't sell it, including stores abroad). This means it is particularly dependent on word of mouth and reader recommendations. So that's why I am plugging away like mad on my blog. I'll be writing about some othe stuff as well besides the book. But the next four weeks are crucial, and as I am trying to make a career out of writing, this is a nail-biting time.


The book launch party, which was cancelled when the terrible news broke of Mum's stroke on the Monday of the week the book came out, threw all the plans for launch stuff into disarray as all the family rushed to her side. I am very sorry to everyone who was invited and especially sorry to those who did not get to hear of the cancellation in time. It will be reinstated in the diary soon and I will let you know as soon as I can.

I am hoping to get some book shop readings organised as well, although I am still scared about what happened to author, and peace activist Milan Rai, when his national book tour about his book ''7/7, Islam and the Iraq War'' was disgracefully targeted by conspiracy theorists, who barracked and heckled him everywhere he went to speak, demanding a platform to talk about '9/11 was an inside job' and behaving in a way that was not only obnoxiously rude, but intimidating. Yes, really. Here they are discussing how to wreck Milan's 7/7 tour on their forums, the *little charmers.

''I am pleased to say that we were accused by the organisers of wrecking their meeting - that is we heckled him everytime he made an outrageous remark or dismissed something which was of paramount importance''( 'Justin, on the '9/11 Truth forum')

''Good work gents, I hope the London crew put this piece of sh*t straight about things, seems to be 'willfully' ignorant like *team rachil. I beg those in London to hijack this fool's meeting and use it to disseminate what we know.'' ( 'Ally', on the '9/11 Truth forum')

* refers to them thinking I am a team of 'shills', or dis-information agents, funded by M15 to Conceal The Truth

If that happens again with me, and they all turn up again to barrack and heckle and try to hijack the reading, it will be a real problem. But I really don't see why I should be intimidated by them, (although at first I did feel intimidated, and I said to the publishers I couldn't do any store activity. That was before everything went wrong with the launch week. ) So I am now going to see if I can do things after all, at book stores where there are security guards and CCTV who can ask people to leave if they are disruptive or threatening. And maybe we can rescue things a bit.

*Which reminds me, Digital Toast has got a grab of the BBC Radio 4 Jon Ronson show where Jon tells David Shayler, ex. M15 and now conspiracy theorist extraordinaire to 'f*ck off'. Enjoy.

Unedited 1st draft of Sunday Times feature

KINGS CROSS UNITED

This is the story of how the ordinary became extraordinary. Of how the 8.50am commute to work became a choking nightmare of oily, blood-filled smoke and an endless scream. Of how the voices of strangers reached out to each other in the terrifying darkness and tried to help each other. The small things that become the whole world, when the world explodes.

My name is Rachel, and I could be anyone you know. The woman whose face you recognise but don't know the name of in the office. You might see me hurrying to work, slightly late, pounding the pavement with my bag slung over my shoulder and my jaw tense. You might stand next to me on the Piccadilly line and wonder why I'm closing my eyes as we pass through Kings Cross. You might queue behind me in a coffee shop and wonder why I start so violently as a siren suddenly blares outside.

Like over a thousand other people, I was directly caught up in the events of 7th July. The bomb carried by a young man in his rucksack exploded about 7-10 feet behind me on my tube carriage, whilst I was reading the news about the successful Olympic bid. Because the train was so crowded, I didn't die. I fell sideways towards the front set of double doors on the first carriage of the Piccadilly line tube as dozens of other commuters on my carriage took the full force of the explosion, in one of the deepest, narrowest parts of the London Underground tube network. My first thought was that I was dead, then that I had been blinded. My ears were still ringing from the blast that was like being boxed violently in the ears as I fell on top of a young woman who had been standing crushed close next to me. In the utter darkness, our hands caught and held on to each other. Tiny shards of glass fell on us and acrid smoke that tasted indescribable caught in my throat as I tried to speak.

Feet away, another woman began to scream and scream.

I checked my body, to see if I was still all there. I was. People began to speak, to groan. The first words I heard, and I don't know if it was my voice speaking them or a stranger's, were 'Are you all right?'

Inside the bombed train, something extraordinary had begun to happen. Though sight was all but impossible, breathing difficult, we normally silent strangers on the train began to comfort and help each other where we could. We became a team.

'Stand up if you aren't injured, hold hands, stay calm. We're going to be all right. We're going to be all right. Hold on. Hold on.'

In comforting each other, we were saving ourselves. From the panic that would have been catastrophic.

Long, long moments passed, and there was the agonised screaming, and the voices calling to each other in the darkness. The panic and the strange calm, the living and the dying, all together in the dark.

We began to use the lights from our mobile phones and we strained to hear as the brave white-faced driver forced his way out of his carriage and beckoned us down the steps into the dim tunnel, warning us to not step on the tracks which could be live. Nobody panicked, nobody pushed, though the urge to escape was overwhelming. The learned, civilised behaviour of commuters who must live in too-close proximity took over, and we queued to leave the train. Once in the tunnel, those of us who could walk, did so, in careful single file for fear of electrocution. Behind me, a man half dragged, half-carried another badly injured man, across his shoulders. The passengers of the Kings Cross train had united and were doing their best to make sure as many of us as possible got out alive.

We talked to each other, we encouraged each other, we even tried to make jokes. We struggled to the ticket hall, and strangers' hands reached down to us and lifted us from the tracks. We reached the blessed cool air of Russell Square ticket hall and people passed us water. Our faces were blackened, our eyes staring with shock. If you touched us, you could feel the explosion still shuddering through the tensed adrenalised body. We still didn't know what had happened then. And how everything had changed, for us struggling into the station; for those badly injured still left behind in the train, for the families of those people we had to leave behind in the darkness as we walked into the light.

You've probably read this story, or ones like it, before. You've probably wondered what it would be like to live through that. It's exactly twelve weeks since the bombings and I would like to tell you a little bit about life now.

Once I had thrown myself into the arms of my partner, once safely home, the first thing I did, before I even washed the soot from my body, was to sit and write down what had happened. I needed to tell my story to other Londoners, and so I wrote an account on urban75.com, a London website, where Londoners were posting news on an internet message board. The response was immediate: people's compassion and concern obvious. It is so painful to tell those you love what you have been through. You want to protect them from the horrifying pain of it all. Putting my story out there to strangers calmed me down. The next day I logged on again to answer the many messages I had been sent, and wrote a progress report. And then another, and another.

I didn't know it, but this writing my story down was saving me. The updates became a daily diary of the strange days of that week in July. I coughed up the smoke and the stitches healed and the daily account of the small steps towards normality was read by hundreds of other Londoners who could have been there. And by some who were.

On Monday, Mark, a man who had been on my carriage read the account got in touch. It was amazing and wonderful to hear from someone else who had been there. He and his wife met my partner and me and we talked and we talked. The sharing of the common experience was like taking a stone from my chest. And he told me the most hopeful thing - he had already got back on a train!

On the Tuesday after the Thursday bomb, I got on a tube train too. I was shaking with fear and nausea. My partner held me, but despite the deep comfort I drew from his presence, I still struggled to cope. Sitting opposite me was a man in a suit and dark tie, looking pale and set-faced. Seeing my distress, he leaned forward, breaking the unwritten Don't Talk rule of the London commuter. He told me his name. And that he, too, had been on my train. We exchanged numbers, shook hands, and from these two meetings, Kings Cross United - the small group of survivors from that train - came about.

Meanwhile, a journalist from the BBC had noticed my blog (online diary), and asked if it could move for a week to the BBC news website, and so reach a larger audience.

I work in an ordinary office, with people who have been wonderfully kind. I'm not a professional writer, but I agreed, as long as I could keep my anonymity. After all, the point of the diary wasn't me, Rachel, especially, but the fact that it could have been anybody. The diary though seemed to be taking on a life of its own; as I wrote it, I felt a burden lifting from me, as the story was shared it became everyone's story, and my voice just one of the voices from the darkness of the Underground train.

I badly wanted more people from my train to find each other; I felt an overwhelming connection to those strangers, those fellow-travellers, those people whose story was now tangled with my story. The voices, those hands held in the dark, when we tried to save each other's lives, and in doing so, saved our own.

And it happened as I hoped. People from the train began to get in touch - largely through the internet, leaving messages on the London website where I first posted the account, or commenting on my blog. A week after the bombs, I went to Trafalgar Square, to observe the silence and keep the Vigil and at my side were people from the train.

Now there are 20 of us who are Kings Cross United, the growing group that is for those who survived the bomb on the Piccadilly line train. We have been to the pub and we keep in email contact. We help each other and in doing so, help ourselves. It is from talking to other survivors that I have learned how so much of my own experience is mirrored in theirs. How ten weeks or so in, many of us seemed to have a collective 'wobble'. How sleeping peacefully became suddenly difficult, how anger and nausea and panic attacks began to strike without warning. We learned how once the shock of the violence fades, the exultation and guilt of survival ebb away, then the hard slow slog of dealing with the small things begins. The burst eardrums are healing, the stitches taken out. Now it is facing the fear, the vertigo of a world that looks the same but is not as it was. The everyday acts of daily life that suddenly cost much more in bravery and determination that we'd ever imagined. Getting back on a rush hour tube. Getting to work on time. Swallowing down the sickening fear and just doing it, because what choice do you have? How much do you want your life back? Isn't it worth these small acts of defiance to take back what we are owed - the ordinary, everyday life of work, family, friends, in this busy, crowded city? Yes, and again yes. We can do it. We are not, after all, alone.

We look the same to you, but inside we are different. Everything shook, exploded and then knitted together differently after the bomb. What looks like cracks and scars are where things have joined up again, stronger than they were before. I wear the unseen tattoo mark of July 7th with pride. Sometimes it aches, but it is part of me and who I am now.

My experiences in the aftermath of the bomb are the experiences of many, and there is a strange comfort in that. Now when I travel, I look at the people around me, the strangers on my tube train. I wonder whether the face opposite me would be the face that looks into my eyes and takes my hand if the unimaginable happened. Of whether the stranger on the train would be the guide in the panic and the voice in the dark. And so I breathe in and out, and I manage the fear. I know, because I experienced it, that I am safe as long as I am still breathing, because these are not strangers. These are my fellow passengers.

He meant to cause terror, that man who pushed onto my carriage and blew himself up. And you would think, wouldn't you, that a hundred feet down in the darkness, when the world exploded, I would have felt utterly alone. But no. The worst of all things happened and we became Kings Cross United. I salute you, my fellow passengers. You have made me forever proud.

If you were thinking of buying my book....

If you were still thinking of getting hold of a copy of my first book Out of the Tunnel (see reviews in side bar) then you'd best order it quick.

The Friday Project, the book's independent publisher, has recently gone into liquidation, owing hundreds of thousands to creditors - for example, MPG Books, a Cornwall-based book manufacturing firm are owed over £150,000.

Harper Collins are still not commenting about whether they are going to acquire the publishing company.

As usual in such cases, authors, editors and freelancers - who are termed 'unsecured creditors' - are right at the bottom of the pile in terms of getting payments that we're owed from the liquidators, so as for our royalties and fees for work done - well, we might as well write them off.

Like many fellow-authors and freelancers, I'm owed money; in my case it's royalties due for the thousands of copies of my book that were sold. My advance was small - but many other authors got no advance at all - this isn't that unusual with an indie publisher.

As well as upset authors, investors and suppliers, there are cross editors and freelancers who did hours of work, which they will likely never get paid for. Some poor people have been excitedly waiting for their books to be published, having laboured over their manuscripts for months or years - and now they have found out that it will likely not happen, so all their dreams are currently in ruins. I hope that their books will find a new home - TFP say they are trying to place books with other publishers. But once a book has been published, it usually has a certain life-cycle, before its sales decline - sometimes weeks, sometimes, months - and it would be pretty unusual for it to be republished by someone else. Several people I know have already been told that their books will not be published. We don't know what will happen to remaining stock of those who were published.

It is hard, and people are very distressed. Unsurprisingly and understandably.

Many authors were told 'not to bother with agents' by The Friday Project. Fortunately, I do have an agent - the wonderful David Godwin, who represents some of the UK's best authors. To be represented by him is a huge help and gives me confidence that my writing career will weather this storm.

I'm luckier than many TFP authors. I write semi-regularly for the Sunday Times News Review, and I do freelance stuff, and I am working on my second book. I am also in discussions about film rights for my first book, with a US producer and a US screen writer who have both separately expressed interest. So at least I am able to hold my head high and know that this awful situation is no reflection on me as a writer - my book got good reviews, and was well-received. One of the best things was to have so many positive emails and facebook messages from readers - I have kept them all and I feel rich for having them. That's something to be happy about.

Out of the Tunnel reached many, many people - despite there being no money for advertising. I worked very hard last summer doing the PR that all authors are contracted to do, and with help from the excellent Midas PR, and David Godwin, and my contacts, I achieved a lot of coverage, including serialisation in the Mail. I tried very hard to be professional and not to let anyone down - even though with Mum's sudden illness and death that summer it was a difficult time for me and my family. My Mum had a catastrophic stroke two days after the book came out in early July. She died in late August. She never finished reading the book, but she was so very proud of it and I remember the excitement on her face as I presented her with one of the first copies.

As I said, it's highly unlikely that I will personally get any money if you buy or bought my book, which is bit of a shame for me, (and for the small charity I was going to give a percentage to) - but I'd like to think that the remaining copies will be sold and read, rather than languish in a warehouse. Who knows, they may be collector's items in years to come. Well, you have to be hopeful, don't you?

Writing Out of the Tunnel was never about earning lots of money - if you leave a job in advertising and think you'll make a packet as a writer you're deluded, especially if you write the sort of book I did. I knew that my book dealt with troubling and painful subjects, and I am actually surprised and pleased that it sold as much as it did. But it would have felt good to get my first royalty cheque in my hands - a big moment for any first-time author.

Writing that book and reliving it all was actually fairly grim, but I had to write it. It was 'a great pressing weight of a story that wouldn't let me be'. I needed to get it out there - so I could then write about other things, other people's stories - and move on, be free to look to the future. I don't regret writing it. I'm proud of it for what it is.

The Friday Project quickly developed a reputation for discovering some great new writing talent on the web and they were nice people to deal with. I wonder what went wrong? We're still trying to find out.

TFP was always set up to be acquired. It picked 'the best of the web to make the finest books' and it had a big catalogue of titles. It had expensive offices. It published too many books too fast, it failed to meet its million-pound fundraising target. Their bank pulled their overdraft facility back in February last year. It got embroiled in legal wrangles, notably with JK Rowling's lawyers after TFP decided to put out an unofficial Harry Potter-related book. There were obviously a series of money problems, and publishing being the risky business it is, it folded.

My thoughts and sympathies are with everyone involved with the fall-out of The Friday Project - I'm in contact with many of the people involved and we're trying to support each other. Through this adventure I have met lots of talented and delightful people. I am sure that many of them will go on to have flourishing careers in writing, and hope that this set-back doesn't knock their belief in themselves as writers.

See also....

Quarsan, The Man who Fell Asleep, E-Luv , Monday Books, Wilf, Mark Farley, Novelr, Eoin Purcell, Guardian blog, Literary Saloon, Bigmouth Strikes Again, Jamieson Wolf, Eoin Purcell again

An interview in January 2008 with TFP,
M.D Clare's blog
Commercial Director Scott's blog

Well, I watched the documentary

It was extraordinarily vivid. It made me realise a little of what it is like for other people to hear my story - our story. It took me back there, properly, for the first time since.

People have asked me what it was like, they have said that they can't imagine what it was like. I couldn't say before, but now I have seen the documentary, I remember it all.

The programme I watched brought back all the memories of the way the roof collapsed down, the way the bombed Piccadilly carriage looked, but it was so dark at first, the memories are like a dream you can't remember, a puzzle you can't solve.

Night diving, without a regulator. Breathing in liquid, drowning. The texture in your mouth of grit, and the taste of blood. Everything changed in a heartbeat.

Have you ever changed a hoover bag? Imagine pushing your face into the open dust bag, and taking deep breaths. That is all you have to breathe. It is no longer air that you breathe.

Then imagine as well as the dry-mouthed choking lung-filling dust, the not-air, the grit, sharp grit. It makes your tongue swell and crack and dry out like leather. It is tiny shards of glass that you are breathing in.

I never covered my mouth. I had nothing to cover it with, and there didn't seem any point.

Then imagine a metallic wet taste on your mouth, like vapourising copper particles. It tastes as if you are sucking a coin. That is the blood. It sprays you, your clothes, your face, your hair, your lips are wet with it. The walls drip with it. But it is black blood, it drips, viscose, like oil, because you are breathing in the smoke and the blood mixed up together. Your skin and hair are wet with the sticky blackness. The temperature rises.

Finally, try to imagine the smell. It is an acrid smell of peroxide, and burning rubber, and burning hair. It fills your nose. It takes over the memory of every smell you have ever remembered and wipes it out. It burns into your mucus membranes.


At first your ears are deaf. The explosion has punched your eardrums so violently that your cheekbones and sinuses ring with it and ache with it.

Then you hear the screams. They do not sound like human voices screaming.

You suck in air. You realise that you are on the floor, and that there are bodies lying on top of you. The bodies are squirming. You are alive. They are alive. Your hand locks into another woman's hand. You hiss air out, pat your legs, arms, you are still here.

You hear a voice, far away. A hubbub of murmurs, and an endless scream that does not seem to draw breath, ever. There is a tinkle of glass falling. Your face is wet. You do not know if it is with sweat or blood. Your blood, or other people's blood. You do not know if you still have a recognisable face.

You grasp the hand and the voice says 'Are you all right? Stand up. Stay calm'.

It is your voice.

And other voices say the same thing. And you try to stay hopeful, you make yourself stay calm.

And times passes, the driver is not dead after all, ssssssh, listen to his voice. See, here are hands lifting you down the ladder of the driver's cab, a soft Scottish voice warning you not to step on the live tracks.


The screams are fading as we walk away down t amhe narrow tracks. My ears ring, my eyes swim. I start to pant, because this is so hard.

And now you are walking through the greenish light of the misted tunnel, and you hear yourself and other voices saying that there is hope, there is help, just walk, they are waiting for us all. With water. With blankets. With ambulances and oxygen. Nurses, doctors, helpers, all waiting, they will be there, and all we have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other. You say it again and again, to drown out the groans of the dying man who is being carried on the man's shoulders, stumbling behind you. The women walking near you listen, they walk, we all walk. We speak to each other. We try to make jokes. We encourage each other. We babble, to drown out the faint groans of the man who is dying. We walk softly, carefully, looking at our bloodied and blackened feet on the uneven flags of the tunnel floor. It takes 15 minutes to walk down the tunnel to Russell Square. Lights will guide us home.

The lights are brighter and I see the small bone poking out of my wrist and I stagger, but here is a woman holding my arm. Here is a man in a flourescent jacket, pointing the way. Here are hands lifting me out of Russell Square; they are pulling on my split wrist; this is the only time I scream.

In the lift. People are falling sideways, eyes staring with shock. In the ticket hall, a white-faced man hands me water. People start to lie on the floor and slump, they stagger. I don't know what to do to help them. I reach down to a woman and ask if she is ok. She stares blankly, I can't reach her. I need a cigarette. I can't smoke in the ticket hall. I stagger out onto the pavement, opposite Tescos, by the zebra crossing. I manage to call my boyfriend and leave a message. I am terrified that he is on the train behind me, and that he is dead. I say that the train has derailed.

I can't light the cigarette, my hand is wet with blood. I am covered in black film and blood. I don't think the blood is mine, I need to call work, but I can't remember my number.

A Japanese tourist is filming me. The LU officials are grey with shock. People are milling about outside, looking irritated. A commuter shouts ' I need to get to work!' . She sees me, comes up to me.


'What the hell is going on? I need to get the tube to work!'

I am black-faced, shuddering, Einstein-haired. I tell her that she won't get to work on the tube today. She mouths a curse at me.


Someone lights my cigarette for me, and I take an emormous drag, anything to take the taste of peroxide and blood from my mouth. I find a number. It is Jenna, a girl on my team. She passed her first aid course last week, she works in Covent Garden. I tell her to please come in a taxi, I need A&E.

I say that I don't need an ambulance. The people I left behind need the ambulance.

I don't want to think about who I left behind.

I start to faint. The taxi comes. I tell my colleague Jenna to ask if anyone wants a lift to A&E. My mouth is numb, my ears are humming, I can't see properly any more. I am panting again.

Jenna wraps a bandage around my wrist. The taxi drives through Tavistock Square, it is nearly 9.45am, as we leave the Square there is a dull 'crump' noise. Later I find out that it was the bus exploding. We get to University College Hospital. The taxi driver demands a tenner. I pass it over. I switch off.


I had forgotten all of this until I saw the documentary. I remembered it all again. I can taste the smoke again. Still.

I saw Gill, the police, the LU staff, and their bravery and sweetness and humanity staggered me, but I need to watch it again, to see and feel how brave they were, because when I watched it, I was not a viewer. I was there.

*Breathe in and out*

I have not come so close to it before. I was there, but I did not know how close I was. I did know, but I did not remember. And others I know were closer still.


Pour wine, deep breath, and lie in J's arms, for a while. That's enough, for now.

Good night.