Manchester comes together in

● Thousands gather in Albert Square in a display of defiance and hope in the face of Monday night’s carnage, with Lord Mayor and police chief joined by religious leaders

age daughter Lucy, she said: “We watched it all unfold last night. We felt we wanted to show a sense of solidarity and commitment that Manchester always has.”

She said some of her friends felt nervous about the prospect of coming into the city last night, adding: “I personally just want to make a stand that even if my friends felt a bit nervous, I felt it was very important to prove that I won’t be beaten, intimidated. And also, people have lost loved ones. If it was me, I’d want to see this.”

Lucy said she had friends at the concert who were “shaken up”, adding: “A few of them didn’t come into school.”

Her mother said: “It’s been a horrific day. But we all feel the same here. We’re here together.”

Shortly after the attack, a rough sleeper described the moment a woman died in his arms from the explosion.

At the time of the blast Chris Parker, 33, was in the foyer area of the venue, where he regularly goes to beg for money as concert crowds head home.

He said: “As people were coming out of the glass doors I heard a bang and within a split second I saw a white flash, then smoke and then I heard screaming. It knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead of running away my gut instinct was to run back and try and help. There was people lying on the floor everywhere.

“I saw a little girl … she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said, ‘Where is your mum and daddy?’ She said, ‘My dad is at work, my mum is up there’.” He said he thought the child’s mother had died from her injuries.

Mr Parker, who has slept rough in the city for about a year, said he also tended to a woman aged in her 60s who was badly hurt from the bombing with serious leg and head injuries.

He said: “She passed away in my arms. She was in her 60s and said she had been with her family. I haven’t stopped crying. The most shocking part of it is that it was a kids’ concert.

“There were nuts and bolts all over the floor. People had holes in their back. It’s the screams I can’t get over, and the smell … I don’t like to say it but it smelled like burning flesh.”

Across Manchester, people offered rooms for those affected by the attack. The hashtag #Roomformanchester started trending as residents volunteered their homes to those in need.

Two hotels near the arena, the Holiday Inn and Premier Inn, both took in stranded children in the immediate aftermath and looked after them overnight, while local pubs and a snooker hall also said they were taking people in.

Social media users reported seeing taxi companies offering their services for free to those needing a ride home from the city centre.

At Manchester City FC’S Etihad Stadium, volunteers turned up to offer help. One came carrying two shopping bags of food, while a team of nurses were seen at gate of the ground and police asked anyone needing assistance to come to the Etihad.

Hayley Adamson, 23, and Poppy Collin, 25, who own a food preparation business, said they were responding to an appeal on the radio.

Ms Conlon said: “We brought food, magazines, sweets, chocolate, crisps, sandwiches, just anything for the kids.”

The city’s Piccadilly Gardens was packed with workers on their lunch break listening to a busker singing defiantly.

Hundreds of Mancunians sat in the sun-drenched central square eating lunch and listening to the musician, who sang songs including All You Need Is Love by the Beatles.

The singer even adapted the lyrics of Bob Marley’s Everything’s Gonna Be Alright to include a reference to the 1996 IRA bomb that struck the city.

Music venues announced their plans to host gigs last night as planned, citizens left impromptu tributes on paper placed on a table outside Cass Art, on Oldham Street in the Northern Quarter.

Thebusker,samfairbrother, 30, from Sale, said he had given up his usual plan of playing for money elsewhere in the city.

“I just thought I had to do something so I’ve come down here to play three songs on a loop all day and I’m not asking for money, it’s not about that.”

Manchester’s blood donor centres experienced an “incredible” response from the public in the wake of the terror ist attack.

The service usually uses an appointment system, but about 100 people queued outsideabuildingonbrownstreet in the city centre alone, and staff tried to accommodate as many donors as possible.

Richard Shortland, the north’s head of marketing for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the generosity.”

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said: “We are grieving today, but we are strong. Today it will be business as usual, as far as possible in our great city.”