On Sunday morning, a group of unlikely friends - bound by a terrible, shared grief nobody else can truly understand - met in a small corner of Victoria railway station. They chatted, shared stories, hugged, left flowers, lit candles and shed a few tears, just as they have in previous years. There were a few words but nothing formal. Then, at 10.31am, they will fall silent.
The silence, of course, was to remember the 22 loved ones who died in the terrorist bombing of the nearby Manchester Arena, just a flight of stairs away, at 10.31pm on Monday, May 22, 2017. None of them ventured to the foyer where the blast happened. That would have been too painful. Instead, as they have for the last few years, they gathered at Soldiers Gate, a World War One memorial which has become the unofficial focal point for many of the families who were ripped apart that day.
It's a meeting place - well away from the official Glade of Light memorial - which has become an annual source of comfort for some of those who lost loved ones, the spot which became a 'field hospital' for terribly inured casualties carried from the blast zone on makeshift stretchers fashioned from metal railings and advertising hoardings.
