Pushing Aside the Gates of Darkness
A Birmingham Memorial
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lI had to fly to Canada with three colleagues in October 2001 a month after the 9/11 attack in New York. None of us had considered cancelling the trip yet when we got to the other side of the Atlantic most people we met expressed surprise that we had been prepared to fly.
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lStrangely when I returned home several IRA car bombs were placed in Birmingham on successive weekends. A friend’s son had been dropped off by a taxi next to the car that exploded ten minutes later in Birmingham Queensway.
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lSeveral weeks later I felt really scared in a car blocked in traffic in Birmingham Queensway when sirens and flashing lights went off all around. I did feel trapped and felt it was perhaps not a good place to be.
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