Manchester attack: Amid horror, strength of an incredible city took hold

The city came together in defiance in the face of the worst kind of cowardice

The attack was the day that we had been warned about by security services. The day we hoped wouldn’t happen. But it happened here. In Manchester, at the Manchester Arena where young girls, known as “Arianators” – after their idol, the singer Ariana Grande – were having the night out they had been waiting for for months.

But at 10.30pm a man calmly walked into the foyer, when he knew people would be leaving the concert, where he knew they would be buying merchandise from the stalls, and he