I REMEMBER THINKING "WHERE ARE MY LEGS?'

Double amputee Martine Wright was the worst injured female survivor of the 7/7 London terror atrocities. Ahead of this year's 20th anniversary, she reveals why she chose happiness over hate through campaigning, motherhood and building a sense of purpose

- Karen Rockett

THE explosion on the Circle Line Tube outside Aldgate Underground Station on July 7, 2005, cost seven lives, not including that of the suicide bomber who caused it. But as Martine Wright knows only too well, the death toll T could quite easily have been eight.

The most badly injured woman of the 7/7 atrocities, she was also the last survivor to be evacuated by firemen from the mangled remains of the eastbound Tube carriage in the wake of the carnage caused by Shehzad Tanweer. And with this July marking 20 years since 52 innocent Londoners lost their lives to the terrible events that heralded a new era of Islamic-inspired terror attacks on British cities, it's a date that has become forever lodged in her mind... for both good and bad.

"I will always have those horrible memories in my head but I will also always think I was lucky," she tells me ahead of a four-part documentary starting on BBC Two tomorrow that will tell the definitive story of the day. "For some people the 20th anniversary will be the memory of that phone call, that police knock at the door. I am lucky, I survived. I've had 20 more years to make new memories."

On that fateful day, four Islamic terrorists blew up three Tube trains and a bus during the morning rush hour. Nearly 800 people were injured in all. The bombings were the UK's deadliest terrorist attack on home soil since the 1988 Lockerbie disaster and the first Islamist suicide attacks. This year's anniversary will be a grim milestone of the events that led to a stepchange in security. But for Martine, 52, who lost both her legs in the atrocity, the 2025 anniversary will be different.

"In the past I have gone on holiday to avoid it but not this year," she tells me over Zoom from her home in Hertfordshire.