Thousands of commuters, some shedding tears, others bearing painful memories, paused yesterday on their way to work to lay floral tributes and remember the victims of the London bombings a year ago.
They took time as they passed through the station at King's Cross at 8:50am -- the time of the first of the four blasts on July 7 last year on three underground trains and a double-decker bus which killed 56 people and injured some 700.
Similar scenes unfolded at other underground stations in the capital that were shaken by the attacks.
In the forecourt outside King's Cross, one of London's busiest rail and subway stations, British Secretary of Culture Tessa Jowell, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and others laid wreaths in memory of the victims.
They then stood solemnly in silence, heads bowed, to honor the 52 innocent people who lost their lives at the hands of the four British Muslim suicide bombers.
At the same time a bell tolled at London's landmark Saint Paul's Cathedral, and candles representing the three other blast sites -- Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square -- were lit.
Later in the day, Britain was to come to a standstill for a two-minute period of silence, at midday, the high point of a day-long series of memorial events.
More than 1,000 people were expected at Regent's Park for an evening memorial service and the reading aloud of the names of all those who had died.
Transport for London, which oversees the capital's mass transit system, said morning rush-hour service was as busy as ever yesterday, with no sign that people were staying away for the first anniversary.
"It's been very much business as usual," a spokesman said.
King's Cross was the station where the four suicide bombers -- Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay -- hopped off a commuter train and then split up on their deadly mission, each with a bomb stuffed inside a rucksack.
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