I remember it well.
The October of ’82 and an adventure for a trio of young petrolheads to the British Motor Show at Birmingham’s NEC.
We travelled by Stagecoach at a time when the Tayside firm was just setting out on its journey to becoming a global transport giant.
In those early days, alongside the passenger stops as the coach headed south from Scotland was also a brief halt in Perth – to pick up the sandwiches made by company founder Ann Gloag for the hungry overnight travellers.
Birmingham’s dawn was cold, but we were soon in the vast halls of the NEC admiring the offerings of every major manufacturer at a time when the British motor show ranked against the best in the world and a crowd upwards of half a million flocked there. (I never did own that MG Metro after promising myself one when I saw the covers come off it.)
Last week I looked back on that Birmingham trip of 35 years ago with any sense of reflective joy completely overshadowed by utter devastation and heart-sapping sorrow.
I’d just sat down with a smart, elegant and engaging young woman whose life path should have included a memory similar to mine, of a bus trip with a best pal to a pop concert by her favourite artist.
In the blink of one terrible moment, the perverse act of a twisted zealot obliterated that prospect, replacing it instead with a maelstrom of haunting sounds and images which followed the split second of silence in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack.
Whatever I write for those whose lives have been touched in any way by the dreadful events of Monday May 22 will be as shallow in its inadequacy as the bomber’s actions were deep in their evil intensity.
But I pray that in time to come their life journey will bring the joyous experiences which may somehow relegate the Manchester memories to all but a very small place in their mind bank.
And that some may even find the courage and determination to perhaps return to the tribute concert Ariana Grande has already promised Manchester.
