London terror attack: 3 years on – ‘Our lives changed forever’
Jenni Lyon, 35, thought that 22 March 2017 would be a normal day. Then she got a phone call from her hubby, Rob, who was at the centre of a deadly terrorist attack…
Iwas in Aldi when my phone rang. I grabbed my mobile out of my pocket, and saw it was my husband, Rob, calling.
With one hand pushing the food trolley, and another holding the phone, I kept an eye on my eldest, Heidi, then two years old, so she didn’t run out of my sight.
Matilda, then only three months old, was in her car seat in the trolley.
‘Hi, love,’ I said as I answered. I was about to tell him
I couldn’t really talk, but he just said: ‘Jen, I’m OK, I’m OK.’ ‘Rob, what do you mean? What’s going on?’ I replied – he didn’t sound OK at all.
‘I can’t talk now, but I’ll call back in a bit,’ he said, and hung up. I looked at the phone, confused.
Rob, now 37, and I had met on a night out in Liverpool in 2010. We married in 2013, and moved to Rugby, halfway between his family in Essex, and my family in Manchester. We had two little girls, Heidi, now six, and Matilda, now three.
It was 22 March 2017 when I got that phone call. Rob was in London doing some PR for the company he was working for. When I got his call, I’d wondered if something had happened at work.
I eventually got our groceries and the girls in the car. When I strapped the girls into their seats I was able to look at my phone again.
It was flashing with messages. I had Facebook messages from people I hardly knew, old work colleagues, saying they had seen Rob on the news, and hoped he was OK.
What is going on? I thought to myself, panic rising.
I kept on trying to get through to Rob, but he wasn’t picking up.
I went home and turned on the news. My heart started
thumping when I saw there had been a terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge as I knew Rob had been in the area.
I needed to hear his voice again, to know he was OK.
When I couldn’t get hold of him, I called my best friend, Carrie. I burst into tears when I told her what was happening.
‘I’m coming straight over,’ she said. By the time she arrived, I’d got through to Rob, but I was really grateful she was with me.
He’d sounded so shaky on the phone.
He’d been walking over
Westminster Bridge with two colleagues, when he saw the Hyundai Tucson 4x4 coming straight for him. He was able to jump into the road, out of its way, and his colleagues went the other way, so the car rammed into pedestrians ahead of them.
He was six inches from being hit himself. I gasped and just felt sick when he told me that – I couldn’t begin to contemplate losing him.
When he told me everything, I was so grateful that his life was spared, but devastated for those who had died. Five people died after attacker, Khalid Masood, drove his car into crowds in the bridge and then fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman outside the Houses of Parliament.
One of the victims was a mum, like me, about to pick up her kids from school.
When, at last, Rob got home the next day, I held him close and didn’t want to let go. Within weeks, we realised the event had a deep effect on both of us.
Rob had nightmares and felt anxious out and about if there was a sudden noise, or if he was driving on the motorway and saw a Hyundai Tucson behind him, he’d have to move out of the way.
He didn’t want that car close. He knows it’s irrational, but the last thing he remembers is the Hyundai car sign, and it brings all the awful memories back.
A couple of weeks after the incident, we’d put the girls to bed, and were downstairs in the sitting room, having a drink and chatting about life.
‘That was a close call on the bridge, and it puts our life into perspective, what do you want from life?’ Rob asked me.
I knew my priority was us, our family.
‘I want us to be together as much as possible,’ I said.
Rob said he wanted to give something back, to help others, and he wanted to be around more. By October 2017 he had worked out his notice, and started his own marketing consultancy. We then began dreaming about how we could help others.
After lots of talking about it, we launched Cauz in August 2018. It’s a charity fashion brand, where £5 from every item sold goes to charity. Fashion wasn’t the first thing that came to mind, but it is something we can do online, and it is growing, and helping others already.
Rob works on Cauz parttime, and works from home with me and the girls, which we love.
That day, in March 2017, could have ended in tragedy for us, like it did for many others. Rob escaped death, we are so grateful he is alive – that is why we want to give something back.