A STUDENT who returned to Guernsey just two days before the terrorist attacks on London on 7 July last year was lucky not to have been caught up in the blasts. Alex Roussel, 20, was living in a student hall about 40 metres from Tavistock Square, where the number 30 bus exploded, killing 13 people. He said that while he did not often catch buses from there, he took the tube twice a day from Russell Square – where an underground explosion killed 26 people and injured more than 300.

‘In that respect, I was very lucky as I would have almost certainly been waiting at Russell Square at about that time to go to college,’ he said.

Mr Roussel, who in September enters his third year at Heythrop College, University of London, said that he watched the TV in disbelief as the drama unfolded.

‘I rang through my phonebook of friends that could have been in London and fortunately all of them were OK. One of my mates was in the halls and woke up to the bomb blast. He went to see what had happened and found all the roads blocked off and people being sent away. I spent the rest of the day watching the latest reports unfold, seeing familiar locations and parts of my everyday life in an eerily third-person view on the news.’

When he returned to London, the atmosphere was a little tense.

‘Londoners seemed, as always, to be too busy to stop and think. Tourists were affected for longer, but, again, people soon realised that life goes on.’

A total of 52 people were killed in the bombings and more than 800 injured.

* In line with the UK, arrangements have been made for a two-minute silence to be observed here today from noon. The sirens are not due to be sounded to mark it.