Memorial Hyde Park London:IRA Terrorist Bombing 20th July 1982

Hyde Park London

On 20 July 1982

at this spot. a terrorist bomb was exploded as The Queen's Life Guard was passing Four members of The Blues and Royal: lost their lives. Twelve soldiers and six civilians were injured. Seven horses died

LIEUTENANT D.R.A.DALY

STAFF CORPORAL (SQMC) R.J. BRIGHT
LANCE CORPORAL J.V. YOUNG TROOPER S.A.TIPPER

This memorial is dedicated to the memory of those who died. and was subscribed to by members of the Public and the Armed Forces.

 

I remember that incident quite vividly and one of the injured horses, Sefton. My dad used to go to London, at least one a week, with his work, to sort out travel visas, etc.....I used to worry about every trip he made.

 

My mum was at the Ideal Home Exhibition when it was hit in 1976. Fortunately she was unhurt but saw things nobody should have to see. I was out of my mind with worry, no mobiles in those days, of course.

On 7/7 one of my workmates was late to work (Knightsbridge this was). His mum had been calling and calling the office to speak to him. When he got in and was told this, he had to be pushed hard to call her. The silly sod just couldn’t grasp how desperately worried his mum was.

 

On 20 July 1982 I was on a coach to London and passed the scene a few hours later. It was strange as we had no idea what had happened, so seeing horses carcasses under sheeting came as a shock.

 

I had a similar experience on 7/7. Having been at work for a couple of hours, I was watching events play out on the BBC2 coverage, wondering all the while if my wife had got into work (Bank) ok. When I did speak to her, she had no idea what had happened, which in the end was a good thing I suppose.

 

7/7/2005 was my fourth day in Special Branch. We were having an office meeting when the Sky News screen (always switched onto to Sky for some reason) started broadcasting reports of incident(s), possibly a fire and the command team called own. HSB (Head SB) replied "Yes, we are monitoring" and a few minutes later when explosions were confirmed the command team rang again - this time HSB said words akin to: "We knew this would happen one day, it has now and get ready". We actually had two SB SOCO officers in London on a course, they helped the Met in a Tube tunnel and returned after several days.

To say the least we got busy, my Sergeant then announced they were going on holiday abroad on Friday and I was in charge of her team.

On Saturday night B'ham city centre was evacuated. Everyone who was in the pubs and clubs cooperated, though fewer people came out that night. That was my longest ever working day on SB 0800-0400hrs.

One of the 21/7 bombers was arrested in Birmingham and taken direct to London.

After several months it cooled down.

 

• Confidentiality:
  Maintain the confidentiality of any information learned during your time in Special Branch.