I wrote this piece for Goldsmiths 'Smiths' magazine in 2010. I put it here now as the US pulls out of Iraq. So many died needlessly on all sides and its easy to forget them, this was how I got my reminder.
After spending nearly two months on the same bus going to St Paul’s every morning and back every night I had gotten particularly sick of the caustic yet monotonous voice announcing the same stops over and over again. This particular morning however I noticed that I hadn’t even noticed the voice at all, enveloped by the News Quiz on my ipod. Sandi had drowned out bus woman, or had I simply stopped listening, had I become one of those blank public transport faces I recognised as ‘A Londoner’? Gone were the days when only a few weeks before I would nervously listen out for ‘Fetter Lane’ and walk downstairs far too early, announcing to all and sundry that I didn’t know where I was going, I was new at this, a 172 ‘newbie’. Not any more, and I comforted myself with the fact that despite my 'knowingness', I was not yet faceless. People looked at me bewildered, as I chuckled with the Radio 4 audience.
This morning the traffic was gone, the schools were out and Fleet Street was slowing down for Christmas. It was early, it was a weekend and Fleet Street is the stone park of London at the weekend, you can actually breathe here. As I walked down towards the mighty dome of St Pauls I noticed another Church on my right. St Brides, I was struck by the beauty of the spire, the wedding cake levels desperately reaching skyward from within the strangle hold of finance and big business. It could almost have been a minaret and as I stood there I expected to hear the adhan, but it never came. The gates were open and I decided to take a look. At first glance the church looked old enough, although the cement façade decorated to resemble stone blocks gave away its relative youth, but the feel was unquestionable, this was old, the gates were old, the square was old, the paving leading to it was old, and I preferred ‘old’. On inspection the church had been demolished by a bomb during the blitz and re-built due to the kindness of business and royalty alike.
The building was deserted, no tourists, no worshippers, no clergy and, beautiful. In a way you almost feel as if you are violating the space when a church is this quiet. I say hello to God in my head, to break the silence, my foot-steps ringing in the naive. As I walked down the body of the church I noticed names on the pews, people I’d never heard of, bankers, journalists, sponsorships from various companies, impersonal to me. On approach the Lady Chapel was simple, alter and a rail to pray on etc. Then I noticed the wall to the left, names again, listed in the fashion of World War memorialisation, from the blitz? But dates were wrong. They were recent. People who had died in Iraq. People from the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, and more. A friend had been fretting about his partner (a journalist) going on hostage training, being a hostage. Personal. All night vigils had been held here for John McCarthy and Terry Anderson. I saw Daniel Pearl’s name and remembered the video, fear, nausea and a palpable chill enveloped my neck. It was supposed to. Then, on the alter, just behind a gathering of anonymous faces who were quickly gathering personality, you could see him, Daniel Pearl, looking back at you. For some reason this was shocking to me, the eyes were bright, happy and young. Somehow it felt wrong to see his face, I felt ashamed, we had seen him die. There was a heat behind my eyes now, the sea of faces, old and young, that had been searching for truth, were now searching my eyes.
I heard laughter from my earphones, it cracked the silence. I gathered myself and left, faceless, ashamed, proud.
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