Recollection of the 96 bombing of Manchester.

Lee Cullen, an officer who worked in the city centre in 1996, shares his recollections of the day. A morning that now lives long in the memory of everyone, started out as your usual Saturday, with thousands of shoppers filling the Arndale Centre and the surrounding streets, looking for some summer bargains. Football fans were also making their way into town to watch England face the ‘Auld Enemy’ – Scotland – at Euro96. A game that would see one of football’s most iconic celebrations take place, the re-make of the infamous dentist chair, following Paul Gascoigne’s wondergoal that put the Three Lions two-nil up, following Alan Shearer’s opener in front of 76,000 fans at Wembley. A traffic warden was working that morning, placing a parking ticket on the windscreen of a Ford Cargo van that was left outside of Marks & Spencer’s on the corner of Corporation Street and Cannon Street. It was that vehicle, in which we now know was packed with explosives, that would rewrite history. Just before 10am, a call was made, warning that a bomb had been planted in that same vehicle, promoting a mass-evacuation of around 80,000 people – one of the largest evacuations in British history.   At 11.17am, the bomb went off. The blast tore through the city centre with devastating effect, windows shattered half a mile way, buildings buckled, and a plume of dust, rubble and steel flew into the air. It was the biggest bomb detonation within the United Kingdom since World War II. More than 200 people were injured, but remarkably, nobody died. Much of Corporation Street crumbled, however, - one thing stood proud - and became the symbol of our resilience, a red post box. As the news filtered around the world, the seemingly untouched box surrounded by devastation, became an enduring image of the attack and the city’s determination to recover. The physical damage was plain to see, estimates put the cost at around £700 million, making it one of the most expensive terrorist attacks in British history at the time. Entire sections of the city centre were devastated. Millions of visitors pass through the city every year, often unaware of just how different Manchester looked before 1996. Yet for those who remember it, the memory remains vivid.