Even before the news spread of this morning's shooting at Stockwell, it was a nervous, unhappy morning on the Tube, as commuters and day trippers picked their way across London, negotiating security alerts and layers of station closures.

"You see customers' faces, they are not happy faces. There is a lot of fear," said a station attendant at Euston Station, as he explained to a crowd that the Northern Line was suspended. "All we're trying to do is get back to normal."

Gemma, a young hairdresser who works at Covent Garden and lives in Walthamstow, north-east London, heard the news and decided to go home. "I'm just going to go home," she said. "I'm too scared."

"Look, you'll be on the Tube and then you start thinking, 'What if he's a suicide bomber?' It's scary. I woke up this morning and I thought I've got to carry on, but now the man's said there's something going on at Kennington, I'm going home," she said.

Visitors to London described the quiet, fractious mood of the Underground, where lengthy security announcements are repeated above mainly silent crowds.

Susan Murray, from the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, said she heard about yesterday's attacks and decided to come to London anyway, but had found people uneasy.

"I was looking at everybody else and everyone was looking at me, and we were all looking especially at people with rucksacks," said Ms Murray, as she sat with her two-year-old son waiting for a train at Euston, Central London.

"I am a bit wary, but I suppose everyone else is too. I just heard someone say there's been something else this morning. I hope not."

Despite her anxiety, Ms Murray said she had decided to bring her son on the Underground with her. "It's just another day out for him," she said, "I was a bit anxious with him, but then I thought, well he can't be the only child that's got to take the Tube."

By Warren Street Station, still closed after yesterday's attempted attack, police offered directions to lost customers and a white vehicle called an "Emergency Control Unit" was parked at the curb. Michael Bland, an installation manager working at University College Hospital, stood watching, taking a morning break.

Mr Bland, who saw armed police rush into the hospital yesterday as they pursued a bombing suspect, said he had not hesitated to come to work today but that he had endured a tense journey on the Underground.

"I was on the Victoria Line and everyone was sort of staring at each other. There was a bloke with a rucksack next to me and I thought, 'Well, it's just your lottery isn't it?You never know when it's your time.'"

Mr Bland said he would continue to use the Underground, even if there is a string of attacks this summer designed to frighten him, but he also pointed to a more sinister reaction which he thought was starting to take hold.

"I'll just re-plan my route and dive in," said Mr Bland, of his determination to use public transport. "But you get the feeling this is going to get a lot worse. I think the English people are going to start looking at the Muslims, do you know what I mean? You're just going to see it getting worse."

All this came before the news of the shooting at Stockwell, where armed police killed a man suspected of trying to attack an Underground train in the station.

Kevin Baker, a taxi driver, heard the morning talk show he listens to on the radio interrupted as the first reports came in.

"Crazy, that's crazy!" He said before gathering himself for a brisk: "Well, he won't be doing that again, will he?"

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