All of us who travel between Doncaster and London on the train regularly will be fearful - Jayne Dowle

As Rotherham (Rawmarsh and Coniston) MP and Defence Secretary John Healey told Sky News on Sunday morning, “this is close to home”, the service from Kings Cross to Doncaster being the one he uses every week to go to and from Westminster. Indeed, Healey said, only that afternoon he and his wife had travelled on it.

Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, and chairman of the Conservative Party, also spoke to reporters, sharing that “I’ve just put my 18-year-old daughter back on the East Coast Mainline”, reminding parents that our adult children are out there in the world independently and we can do nothing to protect them. I shed a few tears at this point.

Facts were still unclear. The attack, which left 11 people injured, had at first been suspected to be terrorism, but this was ruled out.

But still the shock and horror reverberated; what if my son had been on that train – his girlfriend lives in London – what would he have done? Would he have put himself in harm’s way to save others? What if his girlfriend, who’s very slight and petite, had been on that train? How would she have been able to defend herself?

I thought too of my friends who regularly travel up and down from Yorkshire to work in London. And I thought of myself too; if something had happened to me, what would happen to my family?

I’ve heard bombs going off – I lived in London during the IRA campaign 30 years ago - and I’ve kept the ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude. I’m not easily frightened, but the sheer vulnerability of those passengers and train crew, trapped in a moving train with a vicious man wielding a huge knife, is truly the stuff of nightmares.

It is important that we acknowledge that fear is real. We should not stop going about our business, because that way murderous violence wins. But we can be forgiven for thinking twice before boarding public transport, or taking precautions – one parent I know is now telling her student daughter to always sit near the toilet on a train, so she could lock herself in if anything happens. I’ve had conversations with friends about what we might use as a weapon. Handbags? Laptops? Illegal pepper spray?

Whilst facts were still hazy over the weekend, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer adopted a non-inflammatory tone: “The appalling incident on a train near Huntingdon is deeply concerning. My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response,” he said, in a statement.

Thanks should also go to the heroes who stepped forward to try and stop the attacker and were injured themselves in the process, such as the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) staff member who was stabbed while trying to protect passengers, and Nottingham Forest fan Stephen Crean, who tackled the assailant with his bare hands.

And let’s never forget the train driver, Royal Navy and Iraq War veteran Anthony Johnson, whose swift actions switched the speeding train swiftly from the main line to a local line, to pull in at Huntingdon and allow police to board.

However, if Starmer and his ministers fail to accept that the public has been extremely unnerved by what happened on the 6.25pm from Doncaster, they will be doing all the victims and the heroes and every single one of the passengers caught up in the rampage now attempting to get on with their ordinary lives, a huge dis-service.

The man charged with 10 counts of attempted murder on that train, 32-year-old Anthony Williams, is also charged with a separate count of attempted murder and possessing a bladed article after a person suffered facial injuries in an earlier attack at Pontoon Dock DLR station in Silvertown, east London, with at least three other knife-related offences under review.

Some may dismiss this all as an isolated, extreme incident. However, horrific as it was, there can be no clearer indication that stabbings are a scourge on our society, and happen far, far more than we know about.

Our politicians serve us and must, ‘at pace’ as they like to say, come up with measures to prevent anything like Huntingdon ever happening again.