FEW of those Britons who survived the suicide bombs on Thursday cheated death as narrowly as did Victoria Short, whose husband Roger Short, the Consul-General, was one of the victims.

Minutes before the explosion, Mrs Short stopped working in the consulate’s garden to buy milk from a nearby shop. She was almost knocked off her feet by the force of the blast. Amid the chaos and confusion, she tried to force her way back into the compound, calling out her husband’s name. It was seven hours before his death was confirmed.

“Five minutes later and she too would have been inside the compound. It was miraculous she was spared,” the Rev Ian Sherwood, the consulate’s chaplain, said.

“We mourn for all the Turkish and British killed in the bombing and for the community of Istanbul and Beyglou which Roger loved,” Mrs Short said in a statement yesterday.

Her two youngest children, Thomas, 15, and Eliabeth, 20, were understood to be flying to Istanbul to join their mother and sister, Catherine.

Mrs Short said: “This is a very difficult time for our whole community. Its not only us suffering a personal loss but there are many other families like us are grieving.”

The British dead included Nanette Kurma, 41, who worked in the consulate’s visa department and who had told colleagues two hours before the blast that she had finally achieved contentment.

Mrs Kurma, originally from Ayrshire, had moved to Turkey ten years ago after her marriage broke up. Her 17-year-old daughter was later killed in a London car crash. Two years ago she married a local man, Feza Kurma, but the couple are understood to have lost a baby. Despite those blows Mrs Kurma told friends that she was sure her unhappiness was over when she secured her job at the consulate earlier this year.

Graham Wick, 36, a consulate employee from Alloa, spoke to relatives in Britain from his hospital bed yesterday to assure them that he was safe. “I still don’t know how I got out of it alive. It was dreadful, just dreadful,” he said. His face was badly cut and burnt.

Rachel Ringham, 24, a holiday rep from Nottingham, was sitting outside the consulate and feared that the explosion had killed her fiancé, who was queuing for a visa inside the building. But her fiancé Hamdi Acikgoz staggered out of the consulate alive.

Ms Ringham said: “The strangest thing was when a group of pigeons just flew away for no reason — then I heard a massive explosion. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

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