Bystanders become heroes in halting London Bridge attacker

Ordinary people became heroes as they stop a knife attacker in London

Hi again, welcome back to Plain English, the best podcast for learning English. I’m Jeff and JR is the producer. This is episode 215 and you can find the full transcript of this program at PlainEnglish.com/215.

Coming up today: A bizarre series of events in London, as a man brandishing two knives started attacking people at a conference about rehabilitating ex-convicts. The silver lining of this story is the heroism displayed by bystanders, who kept this incident from becoming much worse. Plus, we’ll talk about the phrasal verb “hold off” and JR has a song of the week.

One thing that listeners consistently tell me is that they love the topics on the program. If you even find yourself thinking, I loved today’s topic—I wish I could learn more about it, then you’re in luck. Every Monday and Thursday, JR sends out an email with links to the English-language articles I use to prepare the show. It’s a great way to learn more about your favorite episode topics and to practice your reading at the same time. If you’d like to practice your English reading and engage more with our topics, then make sure you’re on our e-mail list. Just visit PlainEnglish.com/mail and enter your details.

Citizens become heroes as they stop London attacker

The famous landmark London Bridge was the site of tragedy after a man used a pair of knives to attack conferencegoers and tourists. He wound up killing two people and injuring three others. But ordinary people became heroes as they helped to stop the attack from becoming much worse. Bystanders used anything they could find to subdue the attacker: a fire extinguisher, a lance, a narwhal tusk, and their bare hands.

Here’s what happened. There was a conference in Fishmonger’s Hall, a historic building next to the London Bridge decorated with fishing instruments—that becomes important later.

The conference was on November 29 and it was called “Learning Together,” and its theme was offender rehabilitation. That means, how can we get people who are in prison, who have been convicted of crimes, to change their ways and reintegrate with society via education, mentorship, things like that. That was the topic of the conference. Among the attendees were scholars from the University of Cambridge as well as people who had criminal convictions.

The conference was where it all started. The attacker posed as an attendee, but he wasn’t interested in the conference. He came with two knives taped to his wrists and all of a sudden he began to assail conference attendees, stabbing and killing two graduates of the University of Cambridge.

A chef was cleaning glasses in the basement and heard a commotion. He ran upstairs and grabbed a lance off the wall—a lance is like a spear used for killing whales or large fish. He used that to start fighting back against the attacker, but he suffered significant injuries himself, as the attacker still had his two knives.

Several more bystanders intervened. One grabbed a five-foot-long narwhal tusk off the wall inside Fishmonger’s Hall. A narwhal—I had to look this up—is a whale that lives in the Arctic. And a tusk is like a long tooth. An onlooker grabbed this five-foot-long tusk, like a huge weapon, off the wall. One person grabbed a fire extinguisher; another grabbed some chairs. Together they fought back against the attacker and tried to push him outside. The people inside the building thought he was wearing a suicide bomb vest.

After the attacker was forced outside, a motley crew of staff from Fishmongers’ Hall and conference attendees—including prison staff, ex-prisoners, and one convicted murderer—all combined to hold off the attacker. Outside, other bystanders were able to pin him down. A plainclothes police officer wrested one of the knives from his hands.

Police arrived after five minutes, cleared the pedestrians away, and shot the attacker—he had what they called “a very convincing” hoax of a suicide bomb vest. They shot him to protect public safety.

It was a bizarre incident. For one thing, the attacker is an ex-terrorist himself, having served several years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack against the London Stock Exchange. He was released about a year ago. For another thing, he attacked a conference that was studying whether and how former convicts could be rehabilitated. He would seem to be Exhibit A that they could not.

But, some of the people who fought back against the attacker were themselves convicted murderers; one was out on leave for that day only. Perhaps they are evidence of the opposite.

Regardless, it was an astounding feat from people using quick thinking and a lot of bravery to attempt to bring down the attacker. I think we can safely say that it was the first time in world history that a terrorist attack was stopped by a lance, a fire extinguisher, and Narwhal tusk.

The bravery of the onlookers was praised by the London police, the mayor of London. Some of the bystanders have come forward, while others have chosen to stay out of the limelight. One person said, “I’m just a Londoner doing his bit”.

Time to say “hi” to a few listeners. First, two of our most loyal listeners are Manuel Alberto and Cucho. They live in Mexico City. Manuel Alberto is a chemical engineer and his dream is to speak English well; Cucho is his cat. The note he wrote me—I’m referring to Manuel Alberto, not Cucho—that was the first letter he’s ever written in English. And let me tell you, it didn’t sound like it. So, I wanted to say congratulations on your first-ever letter in English to Manuel Alberto.

That’s one thing that surprises me. Several of you have told me that your emails to me are the first time you’ve ever written something in English. I’m sure it’s true for many more of you, even if you didn’t specifically mention that. I just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge the courage that that takes and say thank you to all of you who venture out of your comfort zones to send me a note.

Another listener from Mexico City sent greetings this week. That would be Carlos. Not sure if Carlos has a cat at home. Carlos told me in an email that his favorite food was enchiladas verdes. And my first thought was, that’s delicious; in fact, JR makes a mean enchiladas verdes. My second thought was, why is he telling me this?

Then I realized that he was responding to one of the emails in the welcome series, in which JR and I each say what our favorite food is and we give a few other person details. Then it made a lot more sense.

So if you would like to learn more about your host and your producer, then get on that email list by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail and signing up.

And when you get the message introducing JR and me, then you can reply with your favorite food, too.