30 Years On

 

30 Years On

Some memories bury themselves so deeply you almost forget they’re there. Then something in the present brushes against them, and the old ground shifts.

Back in February 1996, I had responsibility for one site on the Isle of Dogs: Harbour Exchange. I was supposed to visit 4 Harbour Exchange on a particular day — the same day the bomb went off. The only reason I wasn’t standing there at the time was because I’d finished my tasks early the day before and decided to get it done then. I stopped at the local newsagent, picked up what I needed, and carried on.

The next day, that newsagent was gone. So were the two men working there. I had seen them alive less than 24 hours earlier.

My employer needed someone on-site immediately to assess the damage before the cordon tightened. None of the managers could get through, but I could. I grabbed a senior colleague, took a cab as close as the closures allowed, and walked the rest through the back routes I used to live near. The only person who stopped us was site security, and my ID was enough.

Compared to other attacks of the era, the damage was “minor.” Seeing it up close was anything but.

When we finished the assessment and walked out, my manager — who had been stuck behind police lines — was finally allowed through. His first question was how on earth we’d managed to get inside.

The three of us walked out together. My manager and I headed to the nearest open pub, where I was informally debriefed over a drink. Afterwards, I walked him to where he could get a cab, then carried on to the late‑opening pub near my home and did what people do when shock has nowhere else to go.

Around 1am, my phone rang. The office believed the building was being reopened and that an officer was being sent there. Could I meet him? I explained my condition — honestly, it wasn’t subtle — but nobody else was answering their phone. So back I went, same cab, same walk, same quiet route in.

There was an officer waiting. I still had the high‑level security authorisations I’d been trusted with at the time, so despite being in no fit state for anything resembling professionalism, I went back into the building and repeated the inspection I’d done earlier. I couldn’t exactly tell the police that my own office had sent me on a wild goose chase.

When I finished, I walked out and called the command centre. They told me they’d got it wrong — the officer had been turned back. My reply was not polite. I returned to the pub and resumed the job I’d started.

All of this happened on a Friday. I stayed drunk until Monday, when I told my manager why. He told me not to repeat any of it until he and his own manager were gone. They both are now. So I can finally write this down.

For seven or eight years afterwards, I felt numb. I never spoke about it to anyone. Not once.

Something constructive did come out of it: I helped draft the disaster recovery plan afterwards, working with a colleague from overseas — a name I remember partly because I’d just finished a novel that shared it.

I’m over it now. From 2000 to 2009 I worked at Canary Wharf, and I’ve taken my wife and daughter there. Life moved on, as it tends to.

But the memory never really left. I just left it alone.

09/08/2026