A year ago today 14,200 people were having the time of their lives watching Ariana Grande perform at Manchester Arena, yet this show was targeted as a shrapnel-laden bomb was detonated just as people were leaving, killing 22 victims and injuring hundreds more. 🔼
Here are my thoughts...
A year on, I would like to say that things like this don't happen. I would like to say that the world does not have any hate left. I would like to say no one gets unnecessarily killed anymore. I would like to say all of this and so much more...but it wouldn't be true and I would be living in a dream world. Since the Manchester Arena attacks there has been🔼 an attack on London Bridge where a white van was driven at high speed into groups of people and then crashed where the passengers then ran to the nearby Borough Market were they then stabbed people, 8 people died and there were at least 48 injured. There has been the Finsbury Park attack where a 47 year old British male drove a vehicle into Muslim worshippers close to a mosque, one person died. There's been a case where a London tube train was targeted and there were no fatalities but 30 people were injured. My local town, Chesterfield, where nothing usually happens was caught in terrorist raids just before Christmas by counter-terror police as they had intelligence of a suspected terror attack. They're just a handful of the hateful events that have happened in the UK, never mind the rest of the world.
Therefore, I cannot say that the world no longer has hate in it.
But I can say that in the days after the Manchester attacks I was incredibly proud to be British. I was incredibly proud of what the people of Britain were doing to come together to defeat the hate. My experience with Manchester came 5 days after the attack, I had tickets to go and see the Courteeners, a proud Mancunian band, perform at Old Trafford Cricket Ground with support from Blossoms, The Charlatans and Cabbage. My family were understandably rather apprehensive about me going but I wasn't going to let a terrorist stop me from doing what I wanted to do. During the day, I walked down past a lot of flowers, it was rather surreal to be there seeing them in person instead of just on the news. On the tram, it was physically shaking as people were banging along to chants swearing at terrorism and a sense of national pride was felt as we all belted out the national anthem. Obviously at the venue there was a heightened security presence as I was given a WeStandTogether sticker. Liam Fray, the front man of Courteeners, started off with a poem written by Ryan Williams called Our Manchester, a poem I will never ever forget🔼. Then it started, we were lost in the music at the best gig I've ever been to. The best gigs are always the ones where you just enjoy being there and you don't need to worry about anything else. In the aftermath of everything that had happened the week before, it kind of felt like one big group hug. Before the show finished, Liam Fray did an acoustic tribute to the Manchester victims of "Don't look back in anger" originally by Oasis but made especially prevalent when one woman started to sing it at the end of a vigil earlier in the week. There were 50,000 of us at that gig. There were 50,000 of us singing it at the top of our lungs, in defiance to hate and all together as one. I cried during this, I get goosebumps every single time I think of this and I cannot listen to the song without thinking of this moment. I feel as though this will be one of the moments in life where I don't forget what happened, or how I felt. For someone who can ramble on for England, I am struggling to put into words what it meant to be there. We left chanting For the 22, and it was a day I will never forget. I fell in love with Manchester after that.
The reactions from the rest of the world? Musicians were shocked, the people everywhere were shocked, nothing can describe the shock that everyone experienced. I was hooked on helping to retweet everyone's tweets who were asking for help to find their friends or their families. I was constantly checking whether more people had been found and were safe. My heart broke every time the death count when up. Every time the national news came on, I would hope they were going to say it had been some horrible nightmare and this hadn't really happened. Our emergency services, the amazing response time and the amount they did that night should never be forgotten. There were people offering their homes with open doors to come and shelter and make sense of everything. Different religions were opening the doors to their place of worship to give people food and drink. There were taxi drivers, a high amount of Muslim drivers (I mention this as there are still the small minded people who believe that all Muslims are extremists and blamed Muslims for the attack), who were offering free lifts if needed to reunite people with their loved ones. People raised money to donate to the victims families, I for one contributed by going to an open day at a tattoo parlour where all they tattooed all day were Manchester bees and all the proceeds went towards this. The country came together in the most beautiful of ways.
What about Ariana Grande? Of course, no one can imagine what it must have been like to be in her shoes. She was performing as part of her Dangerous Woman tour to an arena full of fans who adored her, they may have received tickets as a Christmas present or a birthday present and had been looking forward to it for ages. I understand this, going to gigs is one of my favourite things to do. I love going to see an artist that I listen to so much and just enjoy being there with others who feel the same way. I would rather go to a gig than have some fancy possession and have lost count as to how many I have been to. I'm sure for many, it was their first concert and it will have stayed with them forever. I remember my first concert was Girls Aloud in 2007. But now, there is this dark memory over it and it will never be the same. You could understand if Ariana Grande just backed away and didn't face any of it, but did she? No. She has shown herself to be an extremely remarkable young woman. She came back to Manchester, just a couple of weeks after the attacks and put on the One Love Manchester gig. An event that had some huge names there including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, the Black Eyed Peas, Take That, Robbie Williams, Liam Gallagher and Little Mix. A total of £17 million was raised. Many, many tears were shed as I watched the show on television. There was a particular moment where a police officer was seen dancing with kids as they all watched Justin Bieber perform🔼 that really did make me proud. Ariana showed great strength as she went to visit the victims in hospital and the families of the fans who didn't make it, she bought a country together through music.
I think the part of it that shocked me the most about the whole thing was that Ariana Grande has a large following of young children. I'm not going to name the man who did it as I don't want the focus to be on him, but he went into an arena knowing there was a high number of young children in there and let a bomb go off. Many, many questions went through my mind as to how someone could do this. But we came back. The families of the 22 lost relatives that day, people lost friends, even just classmates who they might have sat with in an English lesson. In whatever way you want to look at it, we lost 22 people.
However, you'd be fooled to think that we have been defeated because I will always believe that love is stronger than hate and the aftermath of Manchester proved that. I will never let the potential thought of being caught in a terrorist attack stop me from going out and doing what I want to do. I hope many others also stand up to this because we cannot let terrorists win.
So, a year on, eh? I cannot say that the world is no longer full of hate. But I can say that we will stand up against hate, we will continue to spread love, we will continue to live our lives with no fear. We will get back up and continue with our lives, regardless of what is thrown at us. I don't think I will ever get over what happened that night and my thoughts will probably forever be a scrambled mess in my brain but we won't ever be defeated.
Up yours terrorism (I may have used the f word if it wasn't for the fact my mum may have told me off, and if she didn't then my Nana definitely would've, sorry Susie).
I have left links below to everywhere I go my information from and other links that you may find interesting.
Thank you so much for reading this,
Let us all spread positivity and let our lights shine even in the darkest of times.
And the bees still buzz.
All my love,
Lia x
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain#2010s
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-terror-attack-silence-oasis-13090662
http://allyourprettywords.tumblr.com/post/161037821553/our-manchester-ryan-williams
http://www.nme.com/news/dancing-police-officers-internet-stars-one-love-manchester-concert-2084048
Here are my thoughts...
A year on, I would like to say that things like this don't happen. I would like to say that the world does not have any hate left. I would like to say no one gets unnecessarily killed anymore. I would like to say all of this and so much more...but it wouldn't be true and I would be living in a dream world. Since the Manchester Arena attacks there has been🔼 an attack on London Bridge where a white van was driven at high speed into groups of people and then crashed where the passengers then ran to the nearby Borough Market were they then stabbed people, 8 people died and there were at least 48 injured. There has been the Finsbury Park attack where a 47 year old British male drove a vehicle into Muslim worshippers close to a mosque, one person died. There's been a case where a London tube train was targeted and there were no fatalities but 30 people were injured. My local town, Chesterfield, where nothing usually happens was caught in terrorist raids just before Christmas by counter-terror police as they had intelligence of a suspected terror attack. They're just a handful of the hateful events that have happened in the UK, never mind the rest of the world.
Therefore, I cannot say that the world no longer has hate in it.
But I can say that in the days after the Manchester attacks I was incredibly proud to be British. I was incredibly proud of what the people of Britain were doing to come together to defeat the hate. My experience with Manchester came 5 days after the attack, I had tickets to go and see the Courteeners, a proud Mancunian band, perform at Old Trafford Cricket Ground with support from Blossoms, The Charlatans and Cabbage. My family were understandably rather apprehensive about me going but I wasn't going to let a terrorist stop me from doing what I wanted to do. During the day, I walked down past a lot of flowers, it was rather surreal to be there seeing them in person instead of just on the news. On the tram, it was physically shaking as people were banging along to chants swearing at terrorism and a sense of national pride was felt as we all belted out the national anthem. Obviously at the venue there was a heightened security presence as I was given a WeStandTogether sticker. Liam Fray, the front man of Courteeners, started off with a poem written by Ryan Williams called Our Manchester, a poem I will never ever forget🔼. Then it started, we were lost in the music at the best gig I've ever been to. The best gigs are always the ones where you just enjoy being there and you don't need to worry about anything else. In the aftermath of everything that had happened the week before, it kind of felt like one big group hug. Before the show finished, Liam Fray did an acoustic tribute to the Manchester victims of "Don't look back in anger" originally by Oasis but made especially prevalent when one woman started to sing it at the end of a vigil earlier in the week. There were 50,000 of us at that gig. There were 50,000 of us singing it at the top of our lungs, in defiance to hate and all together as one. I cried during this, I get goosebumps every single time I think of this and I cannot listen to the song without thinking of this moment. I feel as though this will be one of the moments in life where I don't forget what happened, or how I felt. For someone who can ramble on for England, I am struggling to put into words what it meant to be there. We left chanting For the 22, and it was a day I will never forget. I fell in love with Manchester after that.
The reactions from the rest of the world? Musicians were shocked, the people everywhere were shocked, nothing can describe the shock that everyone experienced. I was hooked on helping to retweet everyone's tweets who were asking for help to find their friends or their families. I was constantly checking whether more people had been found and were safe. My heart broke every time the death count when up. Every time the national news came on, I would hope they were going to say it had been some horrible nightmare and this hadn't really happened. Our emergency services, the amazing response time and the amount they did that night should never be forgotten. There were people offering their homes with open doors to come and shelter and make sense of everything. Different religions were opening the doors to their place of worship to give people food and drink. There were taxi drivers, a high amount of Muslim drivers (I mention this as there are still the small minded people who believe that all Muslims are extremists and blamed Muslims for the attack), who were offering free lifts if needed to reunite people with their loved ones. People raised money to donate to the victims families, I for one contributed by going to an open day at a tattoo parlour where all they tattooed all day were Manchester bees and all the proceeds went towards this. The country came together in the most beautiful of ways.
What about Ariana Grande? Of course, no one can imagine what it must have been like to be in her shoes. She was performing as part of her Dangerous Woman tour to an arena full of fans who adored her, they may have received tickets as a Christmas present or a birthday present and had been looking forward to it for ages. I understand this, going to gigs is one of my favourite things to do. I love going to see an artist that I listen to so much and just enjoy being there with others who feel the same way. I would rather go to a gig than have some fancy possession and have lost count as to how many I have been to. I'm sure for many, it was their first concert and it will have stayed with them forever. I remember my first concert was Girls Aloud in 2007. But now, there is this dark memory over it and it will never be the same. You could understand if Ariana Grande just backed away and didn't face any of it, but did she? No. She has shown herself to be an extremely remarkable young woman. She came back to Manchester, just a couple of weeks after the attacks and put on the One Love Manchester gig. An event that had some huge names there including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, the Black Eyed Peas, Take That, Robbie Williams, Liam Gallagher and Little Mix. A total of £17 million was raised. Many, many tears were shed as I watched the show on television. There was a particular moment where a police officer was seen dancing with kids as they all watched Justin Bieber perform🔼 that really did make me proud. Ariana showed great strength as she went to visit the victims in hospital and the families of the fans who didn't make it, she bought a country together through music.
I think the part of it that shocked me the most about the whole thing was that Ariana Grande has a large following of young children. I'm not going to name the man who did it as I don't want the focus to be on him, but he went into an arena knowing there was a high number of young children in there and let a bomb go off. Many, many questions went through my mind as to how someone could do this. But we came back. The families of the 22 lost relatives that day, people lost friends, even just classmates who they might have sat with in an English lesson. In whatever way you want to look at it, we lost 22 people.
However, you'd be fooled to think that we have been defeated because I will always believe that love is stronger than hate and the aftermath of Manchester proved that. I will never let the potential thought of being caught in a terrorist attack stop me from going out and doing what I want to do. I hope many others also stand up to this because we cannot let terrorists win.
So, a year on, eh? I cannot say that the world is no longer full of hate. But I can say that we will stand up against hate, we will continue to spread love, we will continue to live our lives with no fear. We will get back up and continue with our lives, regardless of what is thrown at us. I don't think I will ever get over what happened that night and my thoughts will probably forever be a scrambled mess in my brain but we won't ever be defeated.
Up yours terrorism (I may have used the f word if it wasn't for the fact my mum may have told me off, and if she didn't then my Nana definitely would've, sorry Susie).
I have left links below to everywhere I go my information from and other links that you may find interesting.
Thank you so much for reading this,
Let us all spread positivity and let our lights shine even in the darkest of times.
And the bees still buzz.
All my love,
Lia x
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain#2010s
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-terror-attack-silence-oasis-13090662
http://allyourprettywords.tumblr.com/post/161037821553/our-manchester-ryan-williams
http://www.nme.com/news/dancing-police-officers-internet-stars-one-love-manchester-concert-2084048
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