The heroes of Huntingdon

We still don’t know what motivated the suspect in the stabbing atrocity on a train on Saturday evening. But we know what motivated the train’s driver, Andrew Johnson. A burning urge to save lives, to do good, to free his passengers from hell. According to police, Mr Johnson’s quick wits and calm action helped to save people from the deadly blade being wielded in those panicked carriages. He is a reminder that heroism still has a home in England.

What unfolded on the 6.25pm Doncaster-to-London train on Saturday night was truly horrific. Weekend commuters were swept up in a senseless, savage act. The knifeman sliced and cut them randomly. People piled into the dining cart for sanctuary or locked themselves inside loos. Ten people were taken to hospital, some with critical injuries. The eye-witness accounts make for chilling reading. One young man recounts noticing his hand was ‘covered in blood’ after he leaned on the seat that one of the victims of the frenzied assault had been sitting in.

And yet it would likely have been even worse, unimaginably, had it not been for the decisive action of Mr Johnson. His ‘quick thinking saved lives’, reports the Telegraph. He diverted his train moments after being alerted to the mayhem in the carriages. His hulking Class 800 Azuma train had been due to hurtle through Huntingdon Station at 125mph. But Mr Johnson, assisted by his crew, diverted it from its tracks and on to the platform-adjacent track at Huntingdon Station. It was this that allowed cops to board the train the second it stopped and put an end to the bloody horrors within.

Looking at the photos of Mr Johnson that have gone viral online feels like looking into a lost past. He looks like what we once would have called ‘a good bloke’ but which we must now refer to as ‘a middle-aged white man’ or possibly even ‘gammon’. There he is proudly sporting his poppy and his Navy-issue beret – he served in the Royal Navy for 17 years and was deployed to Iraq in 2003. In one photo he’s raising money for the Royal British Legion and handing out poppies. He was reportedly doing this in his local Waitrose just days before he took the controls of that fateful train. He’s been a train driver since 2018.

When I saw those images I couldn’t help thinking that this is the kind of man the opinion-forming classes sneer at. He’s from that most unloved social grip – middle-aged, white, male. He promotes ‘poppy fascism’, as liberal newsreader Jon Snow once described the pushing of poppy-wearing. If he ever popped up on Question Time to ask a Labour MP an awkward question, the digital left would be wailing ‘Gammon!’ all over X. We all know this.

Johnson’s heroism is a reminder of the vein of decency that still runs through this country. Of the love of public service that still motivates many even as the nation they live in becomes more fractured and the governing classes more dumb. There were other heroes on the train, too. A member of railway staff reportedly shielded passengers from the assault and ended up being badly injured himself. He remains in a critical condition. He ‘undoubtedly’ saved lives, say police. An older man reportedly received gashes to his head and neck after ‘blocking’ the attacker from stabbing a young woman. There was unconscionable violence on that train, and uncommon heroism too.

None of us knows what we would have done in such a horrific situation. There’s no planning for a random outburst of hyper-violence in a confined space. Some passengers reportedly armed themselves with a whiskey bottle in case the knifeman came for them, which is as good a strategy as any. And yet how heartening to know that even in the midst of horror, people step up. How heartening to be reminded that the railways have public servants who can stay calm and be brave. How heartening to know that even in these volatile, divided times, solidarity finds a way.

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy