My youngest girl is in tears. Her friends saw unspeakable horrors. How can I ever make her feel safe again?

MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS: THE AFTERMATH OF TERROR

Manchester is my city, the place I am proud to call home. My kids and I have been to dozens of concerts at the Arena. Last time Ariana Grande played in Manchester, my girls were there wearing their Ariana cat ears and dancing along with the crowds.

Just a few weeks ago, we packed into the Arena with thousands of others to watch Ed Sheeran.

My daughters are aged 12 and 10 – the same age as most of Ariana’s young fans. Loads of their friends were at the gig last night and saw unspeakable horrors that no child should ever have to see.

Even worse, some little girls went to their first ever pop concert last night – and never came home.

I struggled to hold back the tears this morning as I tried to explain to my daughters what had happened – and they frantically tried to get in touch with their friends to check they were safe. Every parent in the land will have hugged their kids tighter this morning as they saw them off to school. Sadly, some parents can no longer have that experience.

My youngest daughter was in tears as I dropped her at the school gates, just a few miles down the road from where a terrorist has murdered other little girls just like her in cold blood.

As a parent, that thought is just too hard to bear. “Why, Mummy? Why?” It is a question that, today, I am struggling to answer.

I’ve always reassured them terrorism is a very rare occurrence, our security services are the best in the world and it is highly unlikely to happen on our doorstep.

We went to Old Trafford on Sunday for the last United game of the season and, when Lola asked me why the police were searching cars, I explained it away as just a routine check, nothing to worry about.

Now that explanation no longer works and I can see fear in their eyes.

This is their city, the place they call home, where they shop, play and have fun. Now they no longer feel safe and that fills me with sadness and desperation. But I will find a way to comfort my children and make them feel secure again. Terror will never win. Manchester is strong. We have seen terror stalk our streets before, when the IRA tried to blow the heart out of our city in 1996. Thankfully no lives were lost and Manchester was defiant, coming back bigger and better.

But this time it is different. Twentytwo music fans, some of them primary school children, are lying dead. And that means there are parents like me across the land who will now think twice about letting their kids go to a pop concert, a football match or even a shopping centre.

But I am fiercely proud to call this place my home – and never more so than now. Terrorism has cast a terrible cloud over my city, but the sun rose and shone – as did our spirit.

Proud Mancunians queued around the block to give blood to replenish depleted supplies, taxi drivers ferried stranded young people home through the night for free, families opened up their homes in the city to anyone who needed a place to stay and hotels gave up rooms to those unable to get home. Police, doctors, nurses and paramedics worked through the night to save lives.

The people of Manchester are living proof that where there is darkness, there will always be light.

But there is no doubt that we are also mourning the needless loss of life and the indelible impact on the innocence and freedom of our children.