Witness to London's bus bomb (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Witness to London's bus bomb

A LONGBOROUGH woman who witnessed the London bus explosion is calling for a living tribute to remember the work of the emergency services who fought to save lives after the atrocities.

Marge Clouts, aged 75, of Orchard Rise, was a passenger in a taxi in Tavistock Square when the bus approached from the opposite direction only 10 yards in front of her.

She said: "It was a bang like I've never heard a bang.

"There was dust, like an umbrella in the sky, yellow and thick.

"Perhaps the most startling thing was to see the top of the bus, all at the same time, blow sharply to the right and stay there."

Mrs Clouts, an English examiner for foreign students, was asked to run examinations in London's Shoreditch on Thursday. After taking a train to Euston she took a taxi to Russell Square, where she was booked into accommodation. It was on her journey there that the bus exploded.

After watching the horror unfold, the taxi driver ordered her to get out and run.

She left the black London cab and fled into Peace Square to help and comfort the shocked and injured passengers.

"Some were able to walk away from the scene while others were badly cut by the glass and others terribly burnt," she said.

"I've no right to be shocked but when you see a picture like that it doesn't just go away."

The South Africa-born Jewish widow, who has three sons and lived in Longborough for 18 years, is anxious something positive comes out of London's atrocity.

She is now keen and willing to help to see a living tribute erected to thank the emergency services who have coped in such terrible conditions.

She has suggested that a water fountain might be erected in Peace Square alongside the Ghandi statue, Holocaust memorial and Hiroshima cherry tree.

She said: "Something positive should come out of this, such as a living tribute to the emergency services.

"Imagine digging through the tube-tunnels - the rats, the dead bodies, the horrors of it.

"A water fountain is only a small thing but would make a big difference to the people of London."