An open letter to the London Terrorist/s

Last night terrorists, not content with murdering children in Manchester, descended on my home city of London for the second time in two months.  This attack hit home for me very literally because the areas where they hit, London Bridge and the Borough are all around where I lived the first ten years of my life, where my roots are firmly and permanently put down.

Watching the footage from the Borough last night was surreal, and seeing the great old St George the Martyr church, the church where my Grandparents were married, where my Dad was christened and where I was bridesmaid to my lifelong friend, front and centre during such horrible scenes made me both desperately sad and bitterly angry.

My afore-mentioned lifelong friend, Jane, is Church Warden at that church and I was texting her last night to make sure she's okay.  She is.  Thankfully she stayed home last night (sadly it's because her husband is poorly) but she's safe and I can't be anything but happy and relieved about that.

I had to put some thoughts down on paper last night before I could sleep, and I tidied them up this morning so that they were actually readable!!!!

This is what I had to say:

Dear terrorist/s.

I don't know what your grudge is, and frankly, I don't care.

I don't yet know whether you're alive or dead and, guess what? Yep - you got it - I don't care about that either.

What I do know is that I'm so sorry that people had to die because of your sad and pathetic need to shake your fist at the world, and your deluded belief that this kind of action will change us. Well, guess what. Next weekend, I will make a point of travelling up to London, to the Borough, where my roots are firmly and eternally put down, and I will do it purely and simply to show you that YOU HAVE FAILED.

My thoughts are with the people who died last night, and those who are left behind. I hope they can find peace in the knowledge that London will unite behind them and carry them through this unspeakably painful time, and that every person who died last night was worth a thousand of you.

You? I've forgotten you already.

The Man in the Mirror - Chapter 3

( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 2