22nd May ~ thoughts

Remembering 22 women and children murdered at the Manchester Arena two years ago today and Fusilier Lee Rigby murdered 6 years ago. 

Lee Rigby was from Manchester but it always rains and looks grim whenever I visit so this is a thoughtful photograph of the Lancashire/Merseyside coastline. Part of Antony Gormley’s Another Place sculpture on Crosby sands.  

I know people will be gathering in Woolwich to quietly pay respects. The council have finally agreed to a better memorial near the spot where Lee Rigby died. In Manchester family and survivors have been invited to a personal and private service at a local church. 

We must respect the families’ need for quiet, private and dignified grief; we are British and many of us still take pride in our stiff upper lip. Today we quietly remember those who died. But neither must we forget that today is the anniversary of two of numerous jihad attacks from a menace that is trying to gather force.