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1974: 'We heard a muffled boom'
The Tower of London was bombed on 17 July 1974 - just weeks after the attack on the Houses of Parliament.

No organisation claimed to have planted the bomb at the tower, which killed one and injured 41, but the IRA was widely suspected to have carried out the attack.

You sent us your accounts of the blast.


Peter White, UAE
I was working for Crusader Insurance Company and our office was in Vincula House right opposite the Tower. The Marsh building is now on that site. Our office was on the ground floor at the end of a small row of shops.

We heard a muffled boom when the bomb went off and after a few minutes heard the sound of ambulances and police cars. After some time we saw a group of school children with their teachers wandering around a looking fairly dazed.

We invited them into the office and started dispensing tea! Some of them were covered in dust and they told us that they were nearby when the bomb went off. Luckily none of them were hurt.

But the teachers were obviously very distressed and some of them were crying. The children probably were unaware of what had really happened. But I do remember one of them saying, "Sir, this is the first time I have been close to a bomb" - as if it was something us adults faced every other week.

We contacted the school by phone and the teachers were able to reassure them that all was OK. We helped the children clean themselves up and after a while they went on their way.

Peter White
Peter White: "We heard a muffled boom when the bomb went off"


J Martin, UK
The overriding memory I have of this were the soldiers running about, some with uniforms, some without. They were angry.

We were in the tower when it went off. There was no panic, but when we realised what had happened there was an orderly queue to take everybody out. We duly handed in our films to the Met [police], in case they were of use.

It was a very scary time. We felt so sorry for the young Swedish lad who had lost his foot - it was a very cruel time. I'm glad to have got out OK.


Moira Roberts, England
I was working in central London during the 1970s bombings and saw the Houses of Parliament on fire and was repeatedly evacuated from my office for bomb scares.

The most memorable however is the Tower of London as Dorothy Household, the person you name as the only person who died, was someone I knew. She was a librarian at the local girls' school and was a Sunday school teacher. As a child, a group of us who were taught by her at Sunday school, used to go to her home regularly.

She was a kind and caring person and it was a loss to the community for her to die in that way.


Brian Oldroyd, England
My wife and I were stood over the cannon where the bomb was placed only 30 seconds before it exploded.

We exited the mortar room on the right through an open doorway with a large door fastened back, and walked down a passageway to leave the room.

When the bomb went off we were covered in white dust but had been protected from the blast by the thickness of the walls in the passage.

We saw some bad injuries including people with large pieces of wood from the oak door stuck in them.

We were only on a one-day visit to London by coach from Halifax and spent the rest of the day wandering around in a daze until it was time to go home.

When the bomb exploded I actually thought that someone had fired a cannon! We were both 19 at the time.

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Aerial view of the Tower of London after the attack
The IRA was suspected of carrying out the attack on the Tower


Yeomen of the Guard at the Tower of London
The Tower of London is one of the city's top tourist attractions

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