A thought on this critical week

Keep Calm and Carry On. But what if this time, we can’t?

I must admit, I’ve never been one to be overly scared about the potential threat from terrorism and extremism. Living in London, you don’t have time to think “what if” you just get up and try to forget. In fact, personally I don't have to try. The world is full of devastation, so why should I live everyday scared that something might happen?

This week a suicide bomber detonated a nail bomb in the foyer of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. Resulting in 22 killed and an estimated 120 people injured. Those who were killed ranged from children as young as 8 to parents waiting to pick their children up. Like every terror attack the devastation and heartache was felt across the nation as we collectively grieved for those lost and their families. Fatalities and injuries are high on the scale of recent attacks in England and it comes so soon after the tragic London attack, the county, of course has felt this horrific blow greatly. The response from the Prime Minister Theresa May was to bring security up to “Critical” level whilst investigations carry on. This means army personals can be brought into protect and secure places of importance and threat instead of armed police. Allowing there to be more trained armed police out and about generally protecting. Furthermore this has been put in place as police at the time were not sure in this bomber was working alone or was part of a group. Whilst Critical may sound scary, for me I see this as a positive. This ruling allows security to be increased to maximum to essentially protect the county from this happening again imminently. The last time the county was placed under critical security was after the 7/7 bombing and lasted for less than a week. Showing that although scary to some critical is not a life long sentence, it is a temporary measure to make us safer.

In Nottingham, much like London, I feel safe. Whilst I still live directly in the centre, I still refuse to let that rattle me like it would for some. In October the shopping centre 3 minutes down the road from me, where my friend was working in at the time, got evacuated due to a bomb threat. Strangely this didn’t affect me and much as one would expect. I wasn’t shaken, I wasn’t scared to go into it ever again. In fact no one was. People wanted to go back in so they could get home, finish their shopping and get their bags they had left. In fact my friend and I managed to get into the centre before the rest of the public. Due to her forgetting her bag, and as she had ID showing she worked there we were granted access. It was eerie, anywhere where there was once life and is now empty is creepy. The alarm was still going off and if you looked into the shops, clothes and other products were in heaps on the floor where people had dropped them in hast. It's possible the reaction was so minimal due to the collective thinking that something like that could ever happen to you. Looking back it’s ridiculous, there was the potential of hundreds of people to be hurt yet no one cared, no one batted an eyelid because it didn’t actually happen. The thought of being caught up in a bomb in the shopping centre is petrifying, it almost happened for some a few months ago, but Nottingham forgot about it the next day. I think that is testament to the resilience or maybe the stupidity of people.

Like I said before I am not one to go into hyper drive panic when terror attacks hit. But for the first time, this week I have felt the direct impact of such devastation. I am acutely aware of the sudden increase of police vans and armed police around the city centre and the shopping centres, there is even more security guards in the shops. In London it is common place to see police guarding, there are a lot of important things to protect I guess, and it is arguably a bigger target. But in the little city of Nottingham it's weird to have such a large police presence, and whilst deep down I am relived for the added security it has suddenly made me aware of my safety in a city.

Yet whilst trying to keep a level head over current events my heart still breaks. These children were meant to have the time of their life, yet their lives were so tragically stopped early. There is a video of the arena all singing Arianas song “One last time” which was for them an amazing moment, has now been turned into a chilling and haunting clip. It is easy for me to lay down facts and judge but at the heart of this the bare truth is that peoples worlds have been turned upside down and no amount of facts can ever bring back their loved ones.

Someone said to me recently, Keep calm and carry on isn’t just a cute saying on a tea towel. It was the mantra of Britain when the bleakest of days fell over the nation, when they wouldn't know if they would wake up the next morning and still have their family, their neighbours and their friends. That went on for so many painful years, yet hardy Londoners didn’t let that impending threat destroy them. Every day they would get up, go about their daily lives and rebuild what was now rubble. We can take strength from this during this trying time I believe.

I type this whilst on my way down to London with this quote in my mind along side my prayers for the victims families and friends. I hope that those involved will find the strength to carry on and know that the country grieves with them, and terrorism will never define or control this strong little island.

#Bombing #Manchester #London #Nottingham #ArianaGrande