Travis after the attack in 2017


Travis receives his OBE (March 2024)


It was also good to talk about the attack academically, because often people who know about what you’ve gone through want to mollycoddle you.”


He completed his dissertation on attempts by terrorists to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s.“It gave me the opportunity to submit practical knowledge to academic rigour, and to put into words some of what I feel can be of use to people to have been affected by serious crime.” he reflects.


The location and rural nature of the University were a key part of his recovery. On his arrival he had just completed his formal treatment and using his body was a therapy. One day he’d be running after lectures in the lanes near the campus, the next in Morecambe, and there was always a different area to explore via his new passion.


“The effects don’t go away because of the passage of time. They stay with us. It’s about taking ownership of it and to embrace what has happened and to make sure that something good comes out of something horrific.”


“It is about giving people a chance to talk about their experience,” he explains. “It is the biggest thing I have learned from the attack. A lot of people would recover much faster if only they were given a proper chance to be acknowledged and heard.” He wants to encourage people to share their experiences of terrorism so that others realise that it could have been them, and will be on the alert for themselves and their families: “Together we can do great things. Often we rely too much on elected officials, but it’s time we took it upon ourselves to ‘be’ the change.”


His job lecturing police about terrorism excites him, because he feels that he has been given a real opportunity to make change. “It might seem macabre to be working in counterterrorism, having been affected by an attack,” he says. “But the effects don’t go away because of the passage of time. They stay with us. It’s about taking ownership of it and to embrace what has happened and to make sure that something good comes out of something horrific.”


Travis was awarded the OBE in this year’s honours list and received his award from Anne, the Princess Royal in March 2024.


@travisfrain


For more Alumni features visit www.lancaster.ac.uk/ alumni/news


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