Concert suicide attack: If my girl won’t give in, then neither will I

As literally hundreds of parents waited in the foyer of Genting Arena, we were hit by a sudden tidal wave of excited teenage girls.

At the head of the pack of schoolgirl 'clones' was my beaming daughter and her friend delighted at their nifty escape from the sold-out arena.

Almost hoarse from singing and shouting they regaled every detail of the Ariana Grande show totally in awe of the US singer.

That was less than a week ago and it was Birmingham.

At that very point at the end of the gig in Manchester, as thousands more teenage girls and gig-goers were greeted by their waiting parents, a bomb went off.

The devastation, terror and bloodshed that caused is unbearable. My daughter's friend and her mother were both in tears as the news broke, as were we.

We wept for the victims killed and maimed by some evil lunatic who deliberately targeted the young and innocent simply enjoying a night of music. We wept for their families whose lives were torn apart by the slaughter that night.

But secretly, almost ashamedly, we wept a little for ourselves, relief that this time it was Manchester not Birmingham and that I left that venue with two happy, young girls who had had the time of their lives.

How anyone could stand among those throngs of beautiful young people, see their smiling faces, absorb their laughter and then detonate a lethal, devastating bomb is incomprehensible. That is an act of pure evil, no religion or cause would condone this sadistic murder of children.

Why was this show targeted? Certainly Ariana Grande is an international star and the sold-out tour high profile. Her shows will attract large numbers of young people, was the intention to harm children and shock the world? Why Manchester and not Birmingham, London or Barcelona and Rome even? We will never know.

So I, like many other parents, have questioned whether or not I would allow my teenage daughter to go to shows like this again. Would I have done things differently that night in hindsight?

If asked whether these cowardly acts of terrorism would stop me going to gigs, absolutely not. The terrorists will not win.

But will I still let my daughter go? Still raw from the horror of Manchester, I am not so sure.

I asked my daughter if she would still want to see Ariana or anyone else in a similar concert again. She said: "Definitely. I will be a bit scared, I don't want to die at 14, but I would definitely still go."

We are all a bit scared, and we don't want to lose our lives or those of our loved ones, the Manchester horror really brings this ever-present threat close to home.

But if my daughter refuses to give in to terrorists then neither will I.