FOR early 24 hours, Mr John Jefferies checked and rechecked the lists of injured people taken to the London Hospital in Whitechapel, following the bombing of London's Docklands by the IRA on Friday night.
At 8 p.m. the following day, the search of the rubble which covered the site of the South Quay station newsagent's was called off when the body of his son, also called John, was found. The body of John's colleague and friend, Mr Inan ul Hag Bashir, was also dug from the rubble.
Mr Jefferies snr said yesterday he did not know what to expect when he went to Canary Wharf on Friday night. John's name was not on any of the lists of "walking wounded" issued by the Metropolitan Police, and following a series of visits to the London Hospital he "just did not know what to think".
As the full extent of the personal and economic cost of the Docklands bomb is being realised, details of the search for Mr Jefferies and Mr Bashir have revealed that the two men probably sustained the full impact of the bomb blast in their small newsagency and sweet shop beside the station.
However, while Mr Jefferies was found inside his shop, where he worked as an assistant, Mr Bashir's body was uncovered in rubble near an underground carpark. A police spokesman said they were working on the theory that Mr Bashir had tried to reach the safety of the car park when he was caught in the blast.
Mr Bashir's brother, Ihsan, paid tribute to Mr Jefferies, saying he was "like a brother". Of his own brother, he said: "What tribute can you give, apart from that he was a lovely man? Let him rest in peace."
At Mr Jefferies's home in Bromley, Kent, his neighbours described him as a quiet, unassuming man and also spoke of their fading hope over the weekend that he would be found alive.
One said: "John was such a nice lad who always had a smile on his face and said hello. He came from an ordinary working class family and it is disgusting that this should happen. I am disgusted by the IRA."
Mr Austen Smith, a senior surgical registrar at the hospital, said at least three of the five people still receiving treatment at the hospital would be scarred for life.
Mr Smith also said there was a "significant possibility" that a 23 year old woman, Miss Barbara Osei, would lose her sight due to a shard of glass imbedded in her eye. The remaining two casualties who also have facial lacerations are in a stable condition and may be discharged within days.
Mr Zaoui Berrezag, a 55 year old Moroccan man, is still in a "critical condition" in intensive care. According to a hospital spokeswoman, Mr Berrezag, who suffered extensive head and chest injuries, will remain in intensive care until he can breathe for himself. "His condition remains very worrying."