It was the day before Mother's Day 1993, when two bombs exploded on one of Warrington's busiest shopping streets.
The IRA bombing claimed the lives of 12-year-old Tim Parry and three-year-old Johnathan Ball, who had both been out with their families to buy a Mother's Day card. The explosion came less than half an hour after a coded message was sent to the Samaritans warning them that a bomb would go off in Liverpool city centre, 19 miles away from Warrington.
Today the town will fall silent to remember the two boys who lost their lives 30 years ago in an atrocity that people across the North West will never forget.
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Warrington was still recovering from the aftermath of the first IRA attack at Winwick Road gas works three weeks earlier, on February 26, 1993. According to ECHO reports from the time, the IRA unit had planted four bombs at the gasworks site which exploded, sending a fireball 1,000 feet into the air.
However, miraculously no one was injured and a major catastrophe was averted after one bomb on a petrol tank failed to go off and one of the others, mounted underneath a series of torpedo shaped tanks 50 yards away from a housing estate, did not ignite the five million cubic feet of gas within.
Cheshire County Fire Officer Dennis David told the ECHO in 1993: "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if the bomb on the cylinders had gone off we could have been facing a most dreadful situation. But luckily, the device only damaged the mountings."
Earlier the same day, PC Mark Toker had been shot three times after he stopped a suspicious white Mazda van at the junction of Garven Place and Sankey Street sat idling at a green light. PC Toker survived his injuries.
Three weeks later two bombs exploded in Warrington town centre on March 20, 1993.
Shortly before noon that day, the Samaritans received a coded message that a bomb would go off outside Boots in Liverpool city centre. Merseyside police investigated and also warned officers in Warrington.
At 12.12pm two bombs exploded in the centre of Warrington, one outside Boots on Bridge Street, the other outside Argos. Johnathan Ball, three, was killed at the scene, while Tim Parry, 12, died five days later in hospital.
Superintendent Deborah Hooper had only been working as a police constable for 12 months at the time of the bombing on Bridge Street. In a previous interview with the ECHO, she said: “As soon as I saw it on the news I said ‘I’m going into work’.
"At the police station I was sent with a colleague, who’s no longer in the job, to the accident and emergency department at Warrington Hospital. I knew a bomb had gone off in Bridge Street but I didn’t know if anyone had been injured or killed.
“Walking into the hospital, it was like a scene from a disaster movie. It was such a shock. There were injured people everywhere. I saw Bronwen Vickers – and I remember one of her daughters (the then four-year-old Hannah), whose lovely blonde hair was red with blood. And I remember a girl saying she had lost a small boy in the town centre – this turned out to be Johnathan Ball."
The murder of the two young boys was one of the catalysts that paved the way for Tony Blair's historic 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Since the bombing, Tim's parents, Colin and Wendy, have searched for answers surrounding his death and have dedicated their lives to supporting those affected by the Northern Ireland conflict and other terror attacks, including the Manchester Arena bombing.
In a previous interview with the ECHO, Mr Parry said: "We wanted no more families to suffer as we and so many others had suffered. We wanted peace and that gave a sense of purpose to our lives which would otherwise have been empty of anything but grief and anger and incomprehension.
"We wanted to do our utmost to see that such an act of savagery which killed our son never happened again."
In 1995, Colin and Wendy set up the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation to help with their efforts to find and promote peace and non-violent conflict resolution. They were so successful that Wendy proposed building a Peace Centre both as a memorial to the boys, and to provide an East-West dimension to the peace process in Ireland.
The Peace Centre opened on the 7th anniversary of the bombing, on March 20, 2000.
People will gather from Market Gate in Warrington town centre at midday on Monday to mark the 30th anniversary of the bombing. A minute's silence is also due to take place at 12.20pm to remember the two boys who lost their lives.
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