General Chat

i only read your reply to a thread, i didnt read anything else, id just like to say dont feel you have to not add anymore today has shocked us all, and we all deal with it differently thats shock i read how you have seen some horrific things yourself, and i know things like that dont leave you, hubbys ex squaddie carry on adding, and hope your ok

well said julie anne

Julie Ann I agree with you. We all react differently to these situations. Personally I LIKE normality, even in the face of atrocity - no. especially in the face of atrocity! I am uncomfortable with hysteria (even though its inevitable), because it helps no-one and it's exactly the reaction the terrorists want. And through the afternoon I have felt that there is more hysteria on this board than there was on the London streets! I am a Londoner and Londoners are particularly good at 'carrying on as normal' and they'll be going to work tomorrow on buses and tubes (if they're running) - as normal. While obviously there are many who feel that 'trivia' has no place on a day like today, I feel that it does have a place - to remind us that nothing will put us down because we are stronger than the terrorists. This isn't the first terrorist attack London has seen and it won't be the last, and life will go on regardless. All we can do it to take care. Bev x PS this is just my opinion and in no way is it intended to offend

i was shocked at his honesty as soldiers rarely talk and its so brutal what happens to them, im not getting away from what happened today but you know what i mean, dont want someone reading this and thinking im not understanding, soldiers and their families live with terror threats daily and today is a reminder isnt it everyone needs understanding thaks both bevs for replying youve worded it how i cant,

Bev i agree totally if theres anything this board is good at....its hysteria Bev

Well said Julie Anne. I couldn't find the words myself but I absolutely agree with everything that's been said on this thread. It took a lot for Philip to open up like that, I'm sure, and no-one can judge someone who's been at the heart of terrorism. I, too, have spent several hours this morning waiting to hear from my oldest brother. I came on here tonight for solidarity, not bickering. If this has shown us anything it is that life is way too short to be biting back at each other the whole time. I am sure there are some of us on here who have had similar experiences to Philip or perhaps, like me, waited on 9-11 for calls from loved ones (another brother!). We all have different experiences of such events, whether as witnesses or as those waiting at home for calls, and this will have coloured our reactions to today's events - and that is ok! Sal

Hi Julie Anne - somehow I don't think we're going to hear back from Philip. I sent him a message earlier after reading CB's thread (I actually agreed with what he was saying) and haven't heard anything from him. Some people were quite aggressive towards him and it looks like he's been put off the site now. K x

thats a shame hes probably upset somewhere now, and thats sadend me ive lived in a town where ive had to check car for bombs when ive been out shopping with kids, alone in case hubby got used as target for being a soldier, when terrorist were shooting soldiers going home on leave in the early 90s, its a sad world ,but next week youll still see people walking past suspicious stuff dumped and not think twice, had women ask me in shoe shop recently if a plastic bag left on floor was mine, i said no , and no im not touching it either, maybe im the pessimist,

Marly - my sentiments exactly. That is pretty much what I said to Phillip, but a lot of people were quite unpleasant. The way I personally see it is that the Terrorists want us all to crack, for Britain to seize up in the grip of fear - by finding some sense of normality we are hitting back at them. I wasn't born until way after the second world war (and obviously the first), but I've heard all the stories of people pulling together and refusing to be beaten by events - the stiff upper lip and all that. We are all deeply saddened by todays events, but many of us feel that it is important to get back to a sense of normality again. Kaye x

sadly i didnt see the thread till it was too late, i hope philip your reading this and you can feel the warmth of the feelings people have on here and understanding, take care of yourself, my now 18 year old came home to visit nana and grandad when she was about 4 year old with me , and stay here for a while when daddy was on exercise, as grandad was about to open car she said wait gransh , you gotta check underneath it first, she had taken everything in at that age

I am ashamed to say that I didn't have the guts to reply like this to the original thread - I was going to after just reading the title, but after all the nonsense recently I decided it was probably better to just send a personal reply to Philip. Also, by the time I had decided that it might be a good idea to say something more publicly there was a reply on there about someone's parents not being ok - I didn't seem appropriate then! Kaye x

It looks to me that the thread in question has been removed, which i think was definitely the right move. Hopefully this can all rest now. I hope Philip reads this thread, Julie Anne. Thank you for having the guts to be the first to comment! This is how genes works at its best -supporting each other rather than sniping. I'm signing off now. good night to all. Let's hope there's at least some peace tomorrow for all of us. Sal.X

Having had to pick up dismembered body parts after car bombs , take photo's of babies blown apart by bombs , watch my wife and kids shake with fear because a car bomb blew a hole in our wall in the quarters we were living in , I know where Philip is coming from , I suffer from flashbacks and nightmares from things I have seen and had to deal with in my life in the forces and as an Aid worker in Bosnia and Serbia , and I feel that people like Philip should be listened to and understood and not decryed just because he like me has a different way of coping with situations like today. Think I have said enough so will go

Louise CB was clearly distressed which is I think why no one said too much on her thread. But people were posting obviously without realising what had happened. When you want to post a thread you don’t necessarily even glance at what’s already on the board and therefore I think there was a slight overreaction to this. I am not, and I don’t think anyone is attempting to belittle what happened today, but I suspect that the GR general board would be the last place anyone who was seriously concerned about the welfare of a loved one would have been this morning! I was glad to see ‘normal’ threads beginning to appear on the board this evening, after the (countless?) doom and gloom threads of the rest of the day, during which I regularly escaped to muck around with the ‘names summary’, just for a break. It has been a bad day, and I hope Philip realises that emotions were running high this morning. Tomorrow is another day, and we Brits will stick together and we will get over this. Bev x

thanks twizz you men should speak out more , not bottle it up, i know its hard for you to do as you think you should be strong , and understand you cant talk about certain stuff, but it must help to let some of it out, feel free to use this thread if you want you may reduce me to tears but carry on, im here and so are many others to listen trouble shared and all that

All I can say at this moment in time is Thankyou Julie Anne

its ok twizz anytime

Don't disappear too Twizz, your experiences are 100 times worse than anything the rest of us have experienced and it helps puts our panics into perspective. I couldn't even begin to do what you have done and I have a huge amount of admiration for your courage. Bev x

You are a very kind and gentle lady julie Anne xx

Well, to all of you who've seen fit to criticise me today, I'd just like to point out that I'm the daughter of a Coldstream Guardsman who was in the Regular Army for many years and was called up from the Reserve in 1939 a few months after my brother was born. He fought in Europe at Monte Cassino in Italy, and in the North African campaign against Rommel, during which his brother-in-law was blown to bits at his side. When I was 12, my father died after over 2 years of battling cancer. Towards the end of his life, when the medics could do no more for him, he came home to die - a skeleton of a man who had once been a well-built six-footer. I had to help nurse him (bedsores, bedpans - the lot!) while my mother was at work, and I had to cope with him being delirious and raving about his wartime experiences. I'm no stranger to the horrors of war and bomb blasts - I learned about them as a child, and despite his horrific experiences, my father would never have seen fit to criticise someone for being anxious about the safety of their loved ones during a terrorist attack. I found Philip's attitude disgraceful, and I fail to see why he felt it necessary to be worried about his son working in Dorking, Surrey which is some 25 miles South of Central London. If he was worried about his daughter-in-law, why does that give him licence to take potshots at me? I didn't tell him to remove himself from this Board - that idea was all his own. I just told him what I thought of what he'd said to me and responded to his accusation that I didn't care about 9/11. I couldn't very well care about something when I was under a general anaesthetic for most of that day, and he had no knowledge of my having watched News 24 intently over the next few days, yet he feels he has the right to make such accusations. I don't see what difference his being an ex-soldier makes, and if bullying people is how he exhibits his concern for his daughter-in-law, it's very strange from my perspective! To anyone who accuses me of over-reaction on the thread I posted today, I'd just like to point out that for most of the afternoon, this site would not allow me access to the thread on which Philip was so abominably and unnecessarily rude to me. I tried many times to update the thread title that I'd put up when I first heard the appalling news this morning, but I kept being told 'This page cannot be displayed' or having my posts rejected. Earlier this evening I was trying to remove the thread, but I couldn't for the same reasons, then I noticed Em's posting about her parents and messages left for her, and I thought it kinder to leave the thread in case she hadn't seen them. I'll say again to all of you, how would you feel if your nearest and dearest could have been at death's door? If your loved ones have been in mortal danger, you'll know how I was feeling when I put up that post this morning, and if you think that was over-reacting, then you're entitled to your opinion, but don't lecture me when, for the seventh time inside a year's GR membership, a man has made a personal attack on one of my threads or posts. They really do go for it, these guys, but it's strange how they back off when the girly fights back. I'm seriously considering leaving this site altogether in a couple of weeks. NOT, I hasten to add, because I'm scared of being bullied, but because I'm sickened by the way people who do the bullying are feted and treated with kid gloves, like some kind of hero; and then at other times someone has a slight sniffle and there are 30+ posts of hugs & syrup; and then there's a major terrorist attack with 37 dead and hundreds injured and people on this site want the trivia they call 'normality', as if the disaster doesn't matter! What a weird sense of priorities some people have! CB >|<