I didn't think it would work. It sounded almost a pathetic gesture. When I got to Victoria station, District Line, on my way to Gloucester Road, an Announcer told us the Two Minutes Silence would be observed by staff and - I think he said Passengers if we wished to do so.

Then, just before my train reached South Kensington, the Driver announced it was 11 o'clock. Other, automatic announcements were cut off. The murmur of conversation in the carriage (agreed, seldom loud ath the best of times) ceased. I am not sure if I was the only person who closed my eyes.

My mind was/are haunted by the photographs I have recently seen in exhibitions in Brighton, of the Vietnam and Iraq and Afgahn wars.

As I got off the train at Gloucester Road, the silence was over, but I couldn't stop sobbing. A pathetic gesture? I sat down on one of the platfrom benches and wept