Manchester has been attacked again, and as in the past it must pick itself up and carry on. It is the toughest of all the northern cities and this is not the first time that her enemies have tried to weaken Britain by hitting Manchester.
On the 22nd December 1940, starting at 8.00pm and lasting until 6.00am the following day, the German airforce dropped almost 300 tons of bombs on the city and returned the next night to drop another 200 tons. Almost 700 people were killed, and the city was left devastated. The above photo was taken looking along Deansgate towards the cathedral. Last night's atrocity took place a couple of hundred yards beyond that cathedral.
The Cooperative Wholesale Society had a film crew which made a short documentary of the attack, and which I reproduce above. Note that the city did no whinge or whine, it just got on with its collective life and worked for victory and revenge.
My mother was a conscripted munitions worker at the Avro factory which made Lancaster bombers. In 1945 those bombers paid a visit to Dresden and helped smash it to rubble, with the American bombers then visiting the ruins to bomb them into dust.
As I write, various nauseatingly trendy types are telling us to be tolerant and understanding and an army of parasitic social workers are descending on the city to hold Mancunian hands.
Nobody needed to hold the people's hands in 1940 because they were Mancunians and they know that Manchester is the greatest city in the world. All they needed then was the knowledge that our enemies would be crushed under foot, and that is all we need to hear today. An assurance from the government that our enemies will be battered into submission, no matter how long it takes.
Over to you, Mrs May.
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