Archive film: recorded and originally published on 15 September 2017.
Keep calm and carry on London: a small moment outside Monument station captures the thought behind this one-minute film. It is lunchtime on Friday 15 September 2017. People cross the pavement, walk through the entrance and go about their journeys in the City.
Lunchtime at Monument station
I begin across from the Underground entrance, watching people come and go. An Evening Standard van stands beside the station. For much of the film, the camera stays with this everyday street scene before moving towards the steps.
Then a newspaper board comes into view. Its headline reads: “Terror as blast hits rush-hour Tube”. Beside the flow of passengers, the words make an unsettling interruption to an otherwise ordinary lunchtime journey.
A brief London notebook
“That’s the headline you want to read just as you’re walking into the tube,” I remark, before carrying on down into the station.
The footage shows this moment at Monument; it does not show the incident reported in the newspaper. I called the film Keep Calm and Carry on London. That title reflects the quiet continuation of daily life captured by the camera.
This is a brief personal observation, preserved with its original date. For a longer look at the same month’s walks and markets, see September in London 2017.
