By Jonathan Reynolds MP
“SOME are born here, some are drawn here,” Tony Walsh said of Greater Manchester as we came together to mourn five years ago.
On May 22, 2017, we were all going about our business. In my case, I was in the middle of a General Election campaign.
In the previous 24 hours I had knocked on doors in Hyde, supported friends campaigning in Glossop, canvassed commuters at Stalybridge station, attend a community event in Mossley and stopped into several local business.
I expected my week to carry on in that vein, just as others expected their week to carry on in a predictable line of work, study, family life, for some the beginning of GCSEs and other exams.
Then suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of city-wide grief. The Manchester Arena bomb saw 22 innocent lives lost and hundreds of people injured, in some cases life-changingly, many of them children, including brave constituents.
Thousands of people have been recognised as having some degree of trauma from that night that continues to affect their health, work, study and so on.
They had simply been enjoying a concert, or picking a loved one up from one. Enjoying great music, enjoying the company of friends or family, enjoying freedom.
I remember the news beginning to break late that night like a punch in the stomach.
My phone started to buzz with messages of, ‘Something has happened at the Arena.’ Alongside other MPs and officials, I started to liaise with police and emergency services to get as clear an understanding of the situation as I could amid the chaos, but like many of us, also watched the full horror of the situation unfold on rolling news channels and social media.
Overnight, the full extent of the loss began to emerge, and the next day, I’m not sure ashamed to say that as the causalities were named, many of them as children, I cried. It was one of the worst terror attacks ever to take place on British soil.
And yet terrorists never win. We told each other to, ‘stay strong, our kid.’ Greater Manchester, we did.
When local tattooist Sam Barber launched a fundraiser bringing together tattoo artists across the city to offer Manchester worker bee tattoos to raise funds for the victims, I didn’t hesitate when she asked me to be a guinea pig (although I was a little nervous having my first – and so far only- ink done in front of the ITV news cameras!).
It felt like a unifying and brilliantly Mancunian response. My wife Claire got one too and we love bumping into others with the tattoo in the supermarket, the post office or the pub – thousands of individuals as diverse as Greater Manchester now all proudly wearing its symbol for life. We will never forget.
Since the last anniversary, the inquiry has made progress, hearing the last testimonies in March after 196 days of evidence.
Following the first volume on security at the Arena, the second volume, on the response from the emergency service, is expected to be published in July.
The final volume, on the intelligence and security aspect, is due late in the year. I know the process has been extremely painful for many. I hope against hope that life-saving lessons are learned.
This year has also seen the completion of the Glade of Light memorial. Officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, this beautiful space, embedded with private items of the lost 22, offers grieving families and the whole city a permanent space for reflection and remembrance.
It is also a monument to Greater Manchester’s strength and solidarity. Our unity in the face of hatred and division is their legacy.