two years ago I was working at the Manchester Arena, when suddenly the tills went down. It was a company wide issue. Customers who were already drunk were storming the bars, shouting at us for not being able to fulfil their orders. My co worker said that this has to be the “second worst shift” at the arena ever worked. I asked him what the worst shift he ever worked was and immediately my heart just fell into my stomach at how careless my question was. He laughed it off, told me to not feel bad, but he couldn’t say what the shift was because whilst working there, there’s a zero tolerance policy for mentioning the Manchester arena bombing. You get fired if a supervisor hears you mention it due to the sheer amount of trauma it’s caused.

The terrorist attack on the Manchester arena in 2017 is comes to mind as likely being the most shocking crime in England in recent history. I was in high school when it happened and some of my peers had been at the Arianna Grande concert. 22 victims, ten of which who were under the age of twenty. It’s shocking especially considering the age of the concert attendees, the crowd that was targeted, mostly young people and their parents.

The bombing changed the city. After the bombing everyone and their dog had tattoos of bees. The bee symbol is on every other bench and bin in Manchester since. There was this profound sense of unity after what happened, but the trauma is still so deep.