One year on from Manchester Arena bomb attack

There will be a one-minute silence held outside Leigh Town Hall at 2.30pm to remember the 22 victims that lost their lives at the Ariana Grande concert last year.

This evening at 6.45pm, there will be a memorial event at Pennington Hall Park which will include performances from four singers including Zoe Unsworth and Tony Walsh's iconic Manchester poem, This is the Place, will also be recited.

Lowton singer Jack Hillidge, 16, who was at the American singer's gig on the night of the suicide bomb attack, will perform Ariana Grande's Somewhere Over The Rainbow and One Last Time.

Former Golborne High School pupil Jack will also be giving speech which includes some memorable quotes that Ariana said in the days after the attack.

Jack said: "It will be nice to sing and talk at the vigil because I think speaking out about it can help other people.

"For the first 10 to 11 months after the gig I felt numb and found it hard to accept what had happened.

"It is only recently that I have started to get affected by it.

"When the bomb went off it was a noise I have only heard in a film on the news and found myself in a situation I could never imagine being in.

"At the time I was making my way towards the exit where it went off so I was lucky not to have got caught up in it.

"Everyone's immediate reaction was to run to the furthest exit and get out as soon as possible and it was such a relief to get out.

"Obviously there are many people who were in the same situation as me and I think it is important to let them know that they are not alone and they can talk about it.

"As horrible as it has been in the last year, Greater Manchester is such a strong place and everyone have come together really well to cope with it."

A two-minute silence will take place at the St Helens Road park to give the crowd a chance to pay their respects to people who lost their lives in the suicide bomb attack.

The evening will be rounded off at around 7.40pm by Zoe Unsworth, who will perform Oasis' song Don't Look Back in Anger, which was regularly played as a symbol of unity for Manchester last year.

British Transport Police (BTP) officer Phil Healy, from Atherton, was on duty with his search dog Mojo to look for secondary devices that may have been planted in the area or around the suicide bomber Salmon Abedi.

Mojo has recently retired after being part of a team that won the judge’s special award for British Transport Police Manchester in the National Rail Awards 2017, and picked up the Humanitarian Award at popular dog programme Crufts in March.

Phil, 47, who has worked at BTP for 25 years, said: “Mojo has become a celebrity in his own right in the last year with the publicity he has attracted.

“It was a joy to work with him as he was always very enthusiastic and he enjoyed doing the job.

“He was so important on the night of the attack as well.

“I am keeping him as a pet now even though he still wants to work but he has earned his retirement.”

Bradley Edwards and Georgina-Ivy Bailey, of Harrier Close, Leigh, managed to help children to safety in the aftermath of the suicide bomb attack.

Georgina-Ivy has designed a worker-bee dress for girls aged from three months to 12 to raise funds for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund.

She said “In the last year, Bradley and I keep replaying that night in our minds and naturally we feel like we could have done more to help.

“I have a clothing company and Bradley is a graphic designer so we knew we could give something back by making a dress.

“It has been a joint effort and has given us something to focus on.

“We have gone back to the Arena since it reopened and it was weird as security has obviously tightened up and is more like an airport now.

“But we enjoy going to gigs and we should not stop doing what we love."

The dress is available to buy at Georgina-Ivy’s company All That Pretty’s website at bit.ly/2IBCfwv.