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Iasi (Romania) (AFP)

Politicians and newspapers celebrated his heroism during the terror attack on London Bridge in June last year which left eight people dead.

But for Florin Morariu, a young Romanian baker, the biggest ordeal was to follow the tragedy.

"I was happy in my work, I got on well with people. It was at a moment when my life was beginning to stabilise that this misery began," the 33-year-old told AFP in his hometown of Iasi in northeastern Romania.

On the evening of the attack on June 3, 2017, Morariu opened the doors of the bakery where he worked to 15 fleeing bystanders and took on one of the terrorists with a crate.

He also posted online a video he recorded "so that people knew" what was going on in the chaos of the vehicle-ramming and stabbing spree in the British capital. It was picked up by media the world over, changing his life forever.

As his fame grew he was forced to leave the rented house where he stayed. Fearing reprisals from assailants, his neighbours told the landlord they would leave if he did not.

"People were afraid, that's normal," he said.

"The owner is an extraordinary woman -- we are always in contact. She cried and didn't know what to do, I understood her."

- 'I wasn't ready for that' -

Morariu looked for a new home but it proved nearly impossible to find somewhere suitable.

"People were scared to welcome me. But I understood that. I saw myself on all the TVs, walking with my suitcase, alone, with a bitter heart, without knowing where I was going," he recalled.

"I wasn't ready for that. It was difficult to be a simple person and to become suddenly the focus of international news."

Morariu didn't want to return to work at the same bakery because he felt he would have been "too easy a target".

"I was very stressed... people can't understand the situation if they haven't lived through it," he said, adding that he has taken up chain smoking since the attack.

Unable to find employment elsewhere, Morariu resigned himself to returning to Romania after a year and a half of hard work "and taxes paid" in Britain, he said.

"Even though we have a rich and beautiful country, life is more difficult here. And we all aspire to a better life. People don't leave their country because the situation is good," said Morariu, who was born in a poor area of Iasi where he learned the secrets of baking before attending a specialist school.

- 'Spontaneous reaction' -

After several unsuccessful attempts at employment, attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder which has left him with concentration problems, Morariu now leads a small team of municipal workers.

But he said he has become "more withdrawn, more stressed" whereas before he lived "freely".

A fan of rap and hip-hop music, because it "shows reality on the streets" and an avid reader of "prayer books" which bring him "tranquility", Morariu has also resumed high school with the support of the mayor of his city.

He dreams of writing a book or making a film which "shows people how someone was before the attack, how to regain control after such a trauma, how others react, how one is affected by notoriety, by the falseness of some or touched by the kindness of others".

He also wants to meet other survivors of the attack, to find out how they are "resisting" after "such a shock".

Would he do the same thing if faced with the situation again -- given all he's been through in the aftermath?

"It's a spontaneous reaction. I say now that I would do it again but it's possible that I wouldn't. It's the moment that decides," he said. "We should be more united ... because we are all human."

"It doesn't matter if you are Croatian, Dutch, English, Russian or Arab. What matters is to help one another."

© 2018 AFP