An interesting night out....

June 15th 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the IRA bombing of Manchester city centre. A huge bomb, the largest ever exploded in the UK in peace times, was detonated in the heart of the city causing widespread devastation that took 10 years to repair and cost £billions. I have a particular interest in this event as I was one of the 120,000 people caught up in it having gone into the city that fateful Saturday to buy Father's Day presents. In spite of the scale of the bombing no one died but many were hurt and everyone there was traumatised.

So when the people at HOME discovered that I had been there I was asked to go talk to a theatre company about my experience. I agreed. On the way to HOME I gave some thought to the day to make sure my I had everything in order. The interview started well enough until I got to the point where the bomb actually exploded. It may have been 20 years ago but it still has the power to reduce me to tears. I was surprised at my reaction. I'd thought I'd parcelled it all away but I suppose there are some events that are so traumatic that you never get over them.

The theatre group, ANU Productions, are putting on a production, 'On Corporation Street' to mark the event. Corporation Street was where the van containing the explosives was parked. The testimonies of people, like myself, are being used to inform the production. Last night there was a read through of some of the testimonies in the grand setting of the Great Hall in Manchester Town Hall.

The Great Hall had been set up for the reading of the testimonies in front of an invited audience. It was sobering stuff. It was interesting to hear other people's experiences and as the evening proceeded I got a picture of what other people were doing as I dived for cover under the colonnade of a building on Albert Square as huge panes of glass crashed into the streets of the city onto fleeing crowds.

The strangest moment of the evening was when one of the actors, Gilget, spoke my words. Hearing my thoughts being spoken by a different person shook me and I nearly lost it again. I got to speak to him afterwards. He's a nice guy who was interested to meet me as well.

At one point the people I spoke to originally found me and introduced me to a man they were keen for me to talk to. It turned out he was the arts correspondent for the Guardian, one of the UK's most prestigious newspapers, and I ended up doing an interview for a piece he's doing for the paper.