Mark Taylor, 31, suffered 75% burns and was bleeding heavily when he was carried out of the Admiral Duncan pub after the blast.

But as he waited to be taken to hospital he joked: "I can't believe this, I've just paid £30 for a facial."

Mr Taylor, who is manager of the gay pub on Old Compton Street where the bomb exploded on April 30, suffered a nail in the arm and shrapnel and glass injuries, as well as his extensive burns.

Parents' anguish

While waiting for the ambulance, he was encouraged to keep talking to people who rushed to help him, and was made to recite his age and date of birth.

He was taken to St Thomas's Hospital in London, and later to a specialist burns unit at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex.

He told his story, including the mayhem in the aftermath of the blast and his parents' anguish at his injuries, to a programme to be screened on Monday as the first part of a new Channel 5 current affairs series called It Happened to Me.

• David Copeland, 22, from Sunnybank Road, Cove, Hampshire, will appear in court on Monday charged with three counts of murder and three counts of causing an explosion.