Nottingham attack makes parents like me anxious but we have to grant our children freedom - Jayne Dowle

Rarely do I succumb to possessive pangs or irrational fears, but I’ve been in tears more than once since last Tuesday, when the lives of Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, two 19-year-old students in Nottingham, came to an end in a brutal and apparently random stabbing.

Another blameless person, Ian Coates, a 65-year-old school caretaker and father of three, lost his life, and several other people were injured, one critically, in the carnage that followed.

All I want is for both my children to go out into the world and enjoy and explore everything it has to offer. As a mother, how do I feel, knowing that is just what these two young people were doing – walking home from an end-of-term night out – when their lives ended in a horrific and unprovoked bloodbath?

In awe of Barnaby and Grace’s parents, actually, who have screwed their courage to the sticking place and looked the killer in the eye.

I can’t watch or read too much about their public call for calm and understanding without my eyes filling up again. How can they be so brave as to stand there at the vigil, mere hours since they received the news that their children would never come home again, and urge the crowds not to abominate the killer for what he has done?

“Don’t have hate in your hearts,” Grace’s mother, Sinead O’Malley, a GP, urged. Emma Webber, Barnaby’s mother, told the crowd that “the monstrous individual who has shattered so many lives will not define us”, adding to applause: “This evil person is just that, he is just a person. Please hold no hate that relates to any colour, sex or religion.”

Such dignity, when all around is grief and darkness and fear. It is clear that Barnaby and Grace came from decent families, you only have to listen to the quiet conviction with which their parents speak, their confidence in addressing a crowd even in the absolute midst of grief.

Clearly, everything we know about them illustrates that they had been brought up to be considerate and well-rounded youngsters; history student Barnaby was an accomplished cricketer, Grace, who wanted to be a doctor, represented her country at hockey.

Their names will never be forgotten, but we sometimes do forget, in the hectic polarisation of modern life, that there are millions of young people like them, and not just from secure middle-class backgrounds.

All our children grow up being told at school that if only they work hard, help others and live without judgement or prejudice, they will be okay. If we parents feel overwhelmed with horror at what happened, how do you think our sons and daughters feel?

Who knows what went through the mind of the killer in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but if the motivation was the hatred of an outsider, it is a terrible and sad indictment of what this country has become.

Families left in bits, unimaginable repercussions that will go down through the years. Empty seats at family tables, and in the graduation hall. Photographs of good times, holidays and achievements only looked at through veils of tears. Birthdays and special dates acknowledged, but never celebrated again.

Futures obliterated, all that potential for lives lived well, decently, contributing positively to the world, shattered on a city street in the middle of the night. These young people, dying in terror, before their parents pass. There is nothing natural in this, nothing excusable.

However, as Barnaby and Grace’s parents say, we must go on. Hide the St Christopher (the patron saint of travellers) round your neck when you’re walking in the East End, I tell Jack. Carry your front door key between your knuckle, I tell Lizzie, if she ever comes home alone.

My kids raise their eyebrows at their mother’s cautionary list of ‘street-smart’ advisories, but this last week we parents have been reminded once again that nothing can protect your child when someone is out to kill them. Parents, children, community leaders, everyone who believes in a decent society, deserve better than this.