David Hawarth was in his garden in Bolton enjoying the June sunshine when the phone rang, just after 10am on the day of the IRA attack on Manchester - June 15, 1996.
The council’s on-call emergency manager had been doing extensive pre-planning with police ahead of the Euro 96 tournament, so officers had his home number and his mobile.
The voice of Chief Supt Peter Harris was deceptively calm, despite the horror playing out on his CCTV screen.
“He said it was very suspicious, an authorised call from the IRA, and to get down now,” recalls David.
“He was calm, collected, matter of fact. ‘We have got a potential incident. Can you come and assist us if the wheels come off?’ And they did.”
David, now 69, grabbed his ‘bag of tricks’ that he kept for emergency incidents – mobile phones, hi-viz jackets, tape, torches, ‘anything necessary’ to see him through the next few hours.
In the end it would be a week before the emergency control room he would set up was stepped down.
This would prove to be the worst incident he had overseen by far, although not the first. Four years earlier he had co-ordinated the council’s response when the IRA detonated two Semtex devices in the city centre, injuring dozens.
Watch: The terrifying moment of the blast
Nevertheless today would be on another level. After stopping his youngest daughter Jennifer from leaving for the city centre to go shopping, just as she was on her way out, he jumped in the car.
“My role was to get into the town hall, which wasn’t easy because the roads were jammed. I was on my way in when it blew. I saw the plume from Salford Crescent.
“The ring road was the outer cordon and that’s where I got stopped by police.”
From there he was ushered in by police escort, as shards of glass and concrete were still shattering to the floor. But like the police, a sense of calm focus took over.
“I was driving through debris, down Bridge Street and into the town hall square. It’s odd really. The adrenaline goes and you just do it, you’re thinking ahead to what to do when you get there.”
Once at the town hall, he opened the emergency control room in the council’s basement, still there to this day.
Maps, plans, TV screens to monitor the street above and communications equipment were all in place to co-ordinate the town hall’s response, as hundreds of frightened people were gathering in the square outside.
Counsellors and social workers were brought in, phones ringing off the hook as staff offered to help after watching the unfolding drama on TV.
Watch: CCTV footage shows the dramatic build-up and the aftermath of the 1996 bomb
Upstairs they opened a council committee room for press, of which there were more than usual due to the football, having negotiated with police their entry through the secure zone.
“Richard Leese provided press statements on the hour,” he remembers. “Because we were fairly close to the scene of the incident compared to Chester House, which was where Gold Command was, the basement became the rendezvous for the emergency services for the next few days.”
For the first three days David and colleague Norman Davey kept the room going round the clock, each of them pulling 12 hours shifts. It took until the following Friday night for them to declare the emergency over – conscious another one could be looming.
Like so many involved in the disaster, he says he is ‘amazed’ nobody died.
“It was a combination of lots of people, not just the emergency services but also the security people who worked for the various shops and premises – they all had a role to play in evacuating.
“It was amazing what they did, just to get people out. They were incredible. I wasn’t risking my life. They were.”
