KU professor recounts second London bombing

English faculty member was at Liverpool Station during July 21 attack

Beverly Boyd is glad to be home.

Boyd, an English literature professor at Kansas University, returned to Lawrence on Tuesday night after business trips to England and Holland.

She was with a friend in London’s Liverpool Station July 21 when the city was hit by a second wave of terrorist bombings.

“All of a sudden swarms of police appeared,” Boyd said Wednesday. “They went after a guy who was setting up a television camera. We wondered what in the world that was all about. We didn’t know anything.”

Boyd was unaware that bombings had taken place at two other train and subway stations (Oval and Warren Street stations) and on a bus. She took an above-ground train to Maning Tree Station to catch a nearby ferry and didn’t learn about the bombings until she got to a hotel.

“Nobody knew anything,” Boyd said. “You get hung up on this, and I spent the rest of the evening watching the London branch of CNN.”

Boyd left Lawrence and arrived in England on July 15, a few days after the devastating first wave of bombings took place July 7 in several subways. She traveled to England to take care of business concerning a story she was doing for “Stained Glass” magazine, for which she regularly writes.

Beverly Boyd, an English literature professor at KU, was in London on July 21 during the second bombings after the July 7 attacks. Boyd brought back copies of London's The Daily Telegraph newspaper with coverage of the incident.

“I didn’t want to go, but I had to take care of business,” Boyd said.

The day after the second wave of bombings Boyd walked to a taxi station at Paddington.

“Half of London was there,” Boyd said.

Despite the crowd, there were numerous cabs there to handle the riders, and officials had organized certain locations for passengers to stand to catch cabs, Boyd said.

“They handled it beautifully,” she said. “You had to ride with four passengers. I rode with four women who were doing business. We were going really fast, and they were laughing and having a good time. They were unbelievable.”

Boyd said British morale was strong. And Londoners displayed a no-nonsense attitude toward the bombers, she said.

“They were tough as nails,” she said. “I talked to a relative by phone. He said, and I quote, ‘We’ve been through a war, and we don’t have any sympathy for people like this.'”

Police were also visible in large numbers throughout London, Boyd said. In keeping with the British police tradition, however, many of the officers were still unarmed, but special police or military units were carrying submachine guns.

Boyd said she encountered one police officer who briefly questioned her at Harwich, where she was going to catch a nearby ferry.

“He stopped and asked me, ‘Have you seen anything? Did you see anything?'”

But while the British showed a willingness to stand up to terrorism, many also are critical of the Iraq war and quick to tell that to Americans, she said.

“Tony Blair is very unpopular,” she said, referring to the prime minister.

Boyd said she was on edge the whole time she was in London. She said she finally relaxed Tuesday night “when I hit the bed” back home.