There’s always someone who will talk through a silence. Always someone who will refuse to take part. That’s fine. It’s entirely up to the individual if they wish to participate in a two minute silence or not.
Belching out loud music from your bedroom window however, entirely oblivious to the silent masses below, and within yards of the Tavistock Square bomb site, takes a very special kind of person.
Barbara bought me a drink and some crisps from the cornershop afterwards, and we spoke to the guy behind the desk. He said he’d only just reopened after the bombings, but didn’t mind the loss of income. He said it was more important to get on with life, and that marks of respect like this bring us all closer together. Like a punctuation mark or an amen, we turned around to see a policeman standing behind us, buying a drink and a snack like any other Londoner on a hot day like this.
“Absolutely,” he said.
