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JULY 7: Five years on
It is five years since four men from West Yorkshire travelled to London to become suicide bombers, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds. Five years on, Neil Hudson went back to the streets of Beeston and Huddersfield and the homes of the bombers.
Britain was in jubilant mood. London had beaten Paris to be awarded the 2012 Olympics. Things could not have been better.
The Yorkshire Evening Post's front page headline on July 7, 2005 read 'Come On You Beauty', with a picture of a smiling baby in front of a Union Jack.
That was until 9am, when news began breaking that London had been the target of a terrorist attack.
There was a sense of horror, a horror that turned into disbelief in the days that followed, as gradually it became clear that the bombers had all lived in, and hatched their plan from, local streets.
They were Shehzad Tanweer, 22, from Beeston, Hasib Hussain, 18, from Holbeck, 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay from Huddersfield and ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, a 30-year-old teaching assistant who had recently moved from Beeston to Dewsbury.
None fitted the profile of a suicide bomber. Tanweer played cricket the night before and was even caught on camera arguing with a cashier about being short changed moments before blowing himself up.
Hussain was seen meandering in and out of shops, including a McDonald's, before blowing himself up.
Khan's mother-in-law Farida Patel, a respected charity worker, had even been to Buckingham Palace in 1999.
When news of the bombers' Yorkshire connections broke, I was the first journalist to find ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan's Dewsbury home, on Lees Holm, a quiet cul-de-sac in Ravensthorpe.
It was eerie standing there, with the police at one end and residents milling about in their front gardens, no one quite sure what to make of it all.
But it was the calm before the storm, because what had happened was so huge that within an hour the rest of the UK media had arrived, and the following day came the US entourage with their enormous production trailers.
The same thing happened in Beeston, but to an even larger extent, because it was home to two of the July 7 bombers and ringleader Khan had also worked and lived there.
Five years on, the tightly-packed streets of Beeston are a quieter place. Looking across the rows of red brick houses, washing blowing in almost every garden, children playing in traffic-free streets, there's a look of a bygone era.
But there is division if you look for it: there is poverty and inequality, most of the population are of Asian origin and a good proportion do not speak English.
I visited the street where Shehzad Tanweer lived and where his family still live and knocked on their door.
I was met by a man in his late 50s or early 60s, stout and slightly balding, who seemed distressed to see me and simply told me: "It's all been said," before waving me away.
I received a similar response after driving to Almondbury, Huddersfield, where relatives of Jermaine Lindsay live on a quiet, leafy cul-de-sac.
The woman in question, whom I had met five years earlier, remembered me as if I had knocked on her door just the day before and told me she didn't want to speak to me.
Five years ago, she had seemed on the brink of speaking about her ordeal, but five years had clearly not made it any easier. Others, however, were more willing to talk.
Lifelong Beeston resident Asghar Khan, 41, of Park View, said: "It was one of the most shocking things I ever heard of. When we learned there was a Beeston connection, we were even more worried. Then the media came. We were afraid. Everyone was in a state of disbelief.
"Before the bombings, we never had meetings with the police, whereas now we have a much better relationship with them.
"Another thing is Friday prayers at the Makkah mosque are now delivered in English and Urdu and Arabic, in a bid to avoid misunderstandings. People want to move on now. They want to live a normal life."
Maggie Flanagan, 38, of Colwyn Road, knew Shehzad Tanweer and his family.
She said: "I knew the people who did it, that was more of a shock than anything. I knew Shehzad's family, I knew Shehzad, I would see him on the street.
"The family had two sons and two daughters. I still know them, I live on the same street and they are a very respectable family. They are hard-working and keep themselves to themselves, but they cannot move on. They lost their son.
"I do not think it was a tragedy for the bombers, only for their families and the people they killed and maimed. I have mixed feelings because I know someone who lost a leg in the explosions. It's one of those things that's never going to go away but I think people have tried to forget about it as best they can."
Mohammed Sidique Khan, to the outside world, was a mild-mannered, softly-spoken teaching assistant, liked by the children and respected by colleagues alike, but he led a double life.
Childminder Mary Langton, 51, of Coopland Place, Beeston, worked with him during his time as a teaching assistant at Hillside School (now closed).
The mother-of-six said: "I spoke to him regularly. He looked after the children, he came across as a fabulous bloke. That's why it was so shocking. He would pick the kids up and walk them to school, if any of them had a problem they would go to him, he was a trusted figure.
"When I spoke to him we would pass the time of day, he was a really nice man. It's unbelievable what he did, it was as if he was a Jekyll and Hyde figure.
"It doesn't seem like five years since it happened. There is still tension in the area, you only have to look at the racist graffiti to see that.
"I think people have put it to the backs of their minds but the divisions between the different cultures are still there.
"We have to change things with education, encouraging children to mix with one another."
Leeds Councillor Mohammed Rafique, 43, said: "The difference between now and five years ago is that people in the Muslim community are more vigilant, less afraid to tackle such issues.
"One example is that there was an incident involving DVDs containing propaganda which were left at a mosque, but it was reported to the police and dealt with.
"Five years on, I think we have realised we all have more in common than we do differences."
Shahid Malik, 41, former Labour MP for Dewsbury, had been elected only a matter of months when the bombings happened.
He suddenly found his views being sought by senior government ministers, among them the then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He said: "I was elected on May 5 – two months and two days later came the bombings. The first I knew of the Dewsbury connection was a phone call from (then Home Secretary] Charles Clarke.
"I also spoke to Tony Blair and even the FBI. There's no doubt it defined me as an MP. I took an incredible amount of criticism from Muslims, many of whom viewed me as an enemy within.
"I said it was no longer enough to condemn extremism, that we had to confront it head-on, which meant if you heard something in the mosque, in the street, in a school, in a shop, you cannot just walk by. You have to challenge it.
"People are more open to the fact there is a problem, whereas before no one realised the size of it. The biggest challenge of all was realising there was a challenge."
* An event marking the fifth anniversary of the July 7 terror attacks takes place in Leeds on Wednesday. Communities United - Working Together For A Brighter Future runs from 2.30pm to 5.30pm at the Leeds Makkah Mosque, on Thornville Road in Hyde Park.
Open to all, the event programme features workshops and speeches highlighting the efforts that have been made to bring communities in the city closer together since the 7/7 outrage.
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