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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Mark Brown and Hannah Al-Othman

‘It’s not what Southport is’: how a deadly attack changed a town … and a country

Two women and a young girl embrace near floral and balloon tributes to the victims of the knife attack in Southport
‘A numbness fell across Southport in the hours after the attack … but the mourning was replaced by burning.’ Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

“Southport is a quiet, kind place in which nothing ever happens,” said the Rev Thomas Carter, the morning after it happened. “People are struggling to understand it.”

It wasn’t just Southport; the whole country struggled to process the carnage that took place late on a sunny Monday one week into the school holidays.

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