The Arena bombing survivor who's changed her life around five years on

A mum who survived the Manchester Arena bombing five years ago completely turned her life round after the attack — and is now helping others do the same.

Julie Edwards, 49, went to the Ariana Grande concert with her now-14-year-old daughter Lily. She remembers the night all too well.

“Lily was so excited, she was only nine at the time and it was her first big concert,” she explained. “We parked at the arena and arrived early, taking our seats five or six steps down from the Concourse in the arena. Lily was absolutely loving it - singing and dancing to every song.

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“When Ariana finished I took Lily’s hand and we started making our way out of the arena, I looked down at her and asked if she had a good night and as she replied there was this huge explosion. The noise was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and we felt the power of it.

“It was like everything froze and time stopped. Then suddenly I heard a man’s voice shout ‘run’ and everyone turned around and started to run. It was chaos, I just gripped Lily tight and ran as fast as we could. We came out of the steps near the taxi rank at Victoria train station, and people were tripping everywhere. No one knew what to do.

“I’d parked my car inside the Arena, but I looked down at Lily and just decided we had to keep running. At one point she looked at me and said ‘I don’t want to die mummy.’ We were both so scared.

“Part of me wondered if I was being overcautious, and should return for my car, but I had an awful feeling inside me that something wasn’t right. So, we kept running until we got to Deansgate and I flagged down a taxi, I still had no information about what had happened.”

Julie