Their faces told the story of misery and despair.



The young couple emerged for the last time from the London offices of Lehman Brothers, sharing the news that they and 4,000 others were unemployed.

They were surrounded by colleagues carrying potted plants, documents, cases of wine, stationery and personal belongings.

Someone came out carrying two squash rackets and a football.

Human cost: Workers embrace outside the British headquarters of Lehman Brothers in London as they contemplate their future

By the time they had finished clearing their desks the office must have looked like a wasteland. This was the human cost of the Canary Wharf Crash. Young women stood around in small huddles throughout the building, many of them in tears. Men in smart suits hugged each other and said goodbye with a handshake, maybe for ever.

It has been the Lehman's culture that employees were expected to plough their handsome bonuses back into company shares. And now those are worthless, so they have lost twice over.





What was the atmosphere like inside? 'Terrible,' said Kirsty McCluskey, a 32-year-old trading floor worker. 'Like death. Like a massive earthquake.' She added that staff were busy filling in expenses forms before clearing their desks for the last time.

Another worker described it as 'like a bomb going off ... everyone just walking around in shock.'





Jobless: Bankers leaves Lehman's offices in London with their belongings

Headhunters set up makeshift recruitment offices in coffee shops as hundreds of bankers began the search for work.

Alexandra Andreae-Jones, associate director at Finance Professionals, said: 'We have been inundated with CVs.'

The news everyone dreaded was heralded by an e-mail yesterday calling them in to work at 7am. Some had not even got there on time before it became clear they had lost their jobs.

Frenchman Edouard D'Archimbaud, 24, had not even started his job before he lost it.



He had struggled in on the stricken Eurostar service from his home in Paris to begin Day One of his employment as a £45,000-a-year trader for Lehmans to be told it had folded. 'I never even made it to my desk,' he said.

All around him, in scenes that echoed the final days of some Eastern European regime, people were grabbing whatever they could carry and walking out.

Some were escorted from the building by security guards.

In the canteen, queues formed as workers used up the last credit on their cashless vending cards.



The other company credit cards had already been cancelled and invalidated, right down to the dry-cleaning cards issued for use in local outlets.

Distraught: Bankers comfort each other after losing their jobs



Outside the waterside HQ, the bizarre figure of one Sphinx Patterson, a 35-year-old personal trainer who helps Lehman staff with their gym workouts and 'chill sessions', revealed that a large group had gathered in the bar to down lager and red wine.

It was still only 11am. Mr Patterson, sporting a zebra-pattern leotard and impossibly tight Lycra shorts, said: 'Nobody knows what to do. They're all in shock. But it's not just the bigtime traders. It's an avalanche effect.

'There are a lot of admin staff and secretaries affected too. I saw some cleaners just slumped in a corridor. I just saw one of the receptionists and she was in tears, collecting up all her pens.'

Time for a drink: Another employee drowns his sorrows in a nearby bar



Police and Canary Wharf security guards were called at one stage to separate the exodus of staff from the attentions of TV cameras and journalists, as well as from the occasional heckler.

Investment bankers in their Porsches and Aston Martins are not universally admired on the Isle of Dogs and a couple of locals turned up to revel in their misery.

Investing in the U.S. housing market must once have seemed like a stroke of genius. Not yesterday though.



The East End lads hugged each other and shed mock tears as the workers came out to an uncertain future.

In nearby restaurants and bars, however, the tears were real. One young woman from the trading section said she had taken 15 phone calls from friends in other banks, all offering commiseration. In the current climate, none was able to offer a job.



'I'm really touched that people are thinking of me,' she said. 'But underneath, you know everyone is wondering who's next.'



Bankers immediately started contacting headhunters to find other work

Angry employees take their money's worth from New York headquarters



Angry Lehman Brothers traders in New York were last night determined to get what they could out of the collapsing investment bank as they ripped works of art from the walls and carried them off.

At least three traders were seen taking down paintings and other framed pictures from the Lehmans HQ near New York’s Times Square.

'They do not know if they are going to get paid this month so they are saying, hell, let’s take what we can while we can take it,' said one observer, who works at rival Goldman Sachs but is a close friend of one of the art-thief traders.

A spokesman for Lehman Brothers would not confirm which, if any, works of art had been stolen from Lehman’s offices, but urged employees to leave office furnishings and decorations in place.

'They are pretty stupid people if that’s what they are doing,' he said.



Meanwhile, tourists were flocking to Lehman’s offices on 7th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets to have their picture taken before the HQ of one of Wall Street’s oldest banks closes.

'I don't know if it's still going to be Lehman in a couple months,' said Dulles Wang, a fuels analyst at power company NRG Energy who lives near Madison Square Garden.

'It took a hundred years to build up a firm like this and it's sad if it goes away. I wish I'd taken a photo of Bear Stearns too.'