'We would have been right on the bridge': Kiwi Melanie King relives London terror attack

Melanie King, 57, among the crowds of people walking on the north side of the Thames after being sent across the river following the terror attacks. Photo / Supplied

Huddled in the hot, stuffy basement of a London pub with two close girlfriends, being fed chips and ice cream by staff, Melanie King heard a cop say the words: "There are dead people out there."

That was the first time she grasped the horror of what was happening outside the pub at Borough Market and nearby London Bridge.

On June 3 2017, a warm summer night, three men ploughed a white van onto the pavement of London Bridge, sending pedestrians flying. Then they got out, knives strapped to their wrists, and began slashing at people in a frenzied attack. By the time police shot the men dead, they had killed eight people and wounded 48 others.

The inquest into the attacks is ongoing, with many of the horrific details of that night heard this month for the first time. King, a New Zealander, is keeping a close eye on the news. She was among the hundreds of people who sheltered in the basements of pubs around Borough Market as people outside lay dying from their stab wounds.

King, then 57, had been out with friends all day and was ready to catch her train. Around 10pm, they were walking toward Borough Market, heading for London Bridge, when King ducked into the Old Thameside Inn on Clink St for a loo stop.

Melanie King, from Whanganui, was caught up in the London terror attacks in 2017. Photo / Supplied

When she emerged, the atmosphere had changed. People were screaming, running away from the bridge. A girl came ran past holding her neck, looking terrified.

King only later realised the girl had been stabbed.

She disregarded the noise at first, thinking it was just a rowdy Saturday night. The trio were about to keep walking toward Borough Market, when a noise made them walk over to look at the bridge. Buses were stopped and blue police lights were flashing, but they couldn't see much more.

"Something's going on, but let's go, we'll be fine," King said to her friends. Then she looked over and saw the girl who had run past sitting on the floor outside the pub.

Suddenly the manager of the pub - The Old Thameside Inn - began yelling. "He literally ordered us in. 'Get in here. Get in here now'," King said. "We knew then something was happening."

About 150 people were herded down into the basement, and the doors barricaded. Many were tipsy or drunk; nobody knew what was going on. Then a plain clothes policeman told them, "There are dead people out there so we're keeping you in here."

A woman behind her, whose English was poor, was worrying aloud about her husband who she had lost in the chaos. King understands the man was stabbed.

Melanie King hid in the Old Thameside Inn's basement during the London Bridge terror attack. Photo / Google Maps, Flavio Zanda

Inside, pub staff handed out water, bowls of chips and ice creams.

Outside, police were evacuating the area around London Bridge, sending people over the Thames. After nearly an hour King and the pub's other occupants were allowed out. They were met with an eerie silence.

Police at first wanted to evacuate everyone by boat, but the tide was low and the water too choppy. So they walked west in single file, hands on heads, past a long line of armed police and empty restaurants till they reached Southwark Bridge.

Then a police officer began screaming, "Run! Run! Run!" King recalled, and the terrified crowd sprinted across to the safety of the north side of the Thames.

A photo from that night shows a dazed King with others walking among crowds of people, unsure where to go.

Melanie King, 57, among the crowds of people walking on the north side of the Thames after being sent across the river following the terror attacks. Photo / Supplied

"In the end my two friends and I just kept walking until we ended up at Waterloo," she said. With no trains running, King left her friends and got on the first bus heading south, to Crystal Palace, around 2.30am before getting a taxi home to Croydon.

It was a long bus ride. Passengers were chattering about what had happened but it was clear they didn't know people had been killed, King said.

"I wasn't really listening. I was in a world of my own, thinking 'I can't believe that happened', trying to make sense of [it]."

King and her friends have rehashed that night over and over again. "If I hadn't stopped and gone for a wee we would have been right on the bridge," she said. "It would have saved us about seven minutes, so we would have been up there where it happened. That was a bit close for comfort."

But while she did consider heeding the pleas of her sisters and moving back to New Zealand, she decided to stay.

"I've been here a long time. Back in the days of the IRA bombing I was stuck on a train outside Victoria because a bomb had gone off at Victoria Station," she said.

"You don't get used to it. I think I was a bit cautious afterward ... but I didn't seriously think of coming home. It's just part of being somewhere. Anything can happen anywhere - as you guys have seen in Christchurch."