Rachel North

Rachel North

Rachel North is one of the most widely-recognised survivors of the 7th July London Bombings. The bomb exploded about eight feet away from her on the first carriage of the Piccadilly line train, killing 26, and wounding over 340. Rachel escaped with minor injuries, and walked home where she wrote of her experiences on a Londoners' internet message board.  Her moving account of the bomb and the days following was quickly picked up by the BBC news website, who co-opted her as a ‘citizen journalist’, and Rachel’s ‘compelling’ (BBC) account of the week after the bombs, hosted on the  BBC website drew millions of readers from all over the world. She continued to write her account of the personal and political fallout after the London bombings on a personal website diary. This garnered further media interest, and Rachel was asked to write lengthy pieces for The Sunday Times News Review, London Evening Standard, Grazia magazine, The Sun and The Mirror. 

'Rachel's Story' (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1892288,00.html)  was published as the lead article in the Sunday Times News Review in November 2005. It resulted in one of the biggest-ever postbags of readers' responses to a story. In the 3000 word feature,  Rachel revealed how she had been reading a magazine article about her 2002 rape and near-death experience moments before the train bomb exploded. Her previous experience informed much of her reaction to the London bombings and after, and inspired her to muse on the nature of forgiveness as well as take practical steps to help others with PTSD.

Her story, and the story of the Kings Cross United passengers has been widely covered in UK and international media. She is regularly invited to comment on issues regarding July 7th and the victims of terrorism by UK news stations, The Daily Politics and The Politics Show and various BBC radio shows such as BBC Radio 4’s PM .

Rachel left her job as an advertising Strategy Director on October 2006 and is now a full-time writer. Out of the Tunnel, her account of the personal and political fall-out of 7/7 and after, was published by The Friday Project. She lives in North London with her fiancé ‘J’, and her cat, Miff.

Titles

Out of the Tunnel  (The Friday Project, 2007)

Links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4670099.stm ( Rachel’s original BBC account)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5140774.stm ( Her BBC follow-up one year on)