Central Croydon on a Thursday lunch time. Ordinarily the streets would be teeming with people heading out of their offices for lunch, traffic would pass along the Underpass on route to its destination and the trams would go about their day-to-day business ferrying people around the town.

But at midday last Thursday, as the grey skies overhead ominously started to pour with rain, the streets were eerily quiet.

Where there would usually be a steady stream of cars, there were none. The Underpass a main artery through the centre of the town was deserted.

Police sealed off Wellesley Road and most of George Street after offices and East Croydon station were evacuated following two security alerts.

On street corners, close to the cordons, people huddled in small groups, sheltering from the rain under umbrellas or in the doorways of shops and offices, as news continued to filter through about the bomb blasts in London. People listened to the radio via their mobile phones, or frantically tried to call friends and relatives. Others huddled around or inside electrical stores which were screening live news broadcasts on every available television. The mood was sombre but also, strangely, it drew people together.

People sharing the news they had heard and talking about how they were going to make it home.