A father endured an agonising wait back home in Peel to hear whether his wife and two daughters had been reunited safe and well after the Manchester Arena bomb blast.

Kelvin Dawson’s wife Marie and two of their three children, Ana, 16, and 15-year-old Lea were in Manchester for the Ariana Grande gig.

Tickets for the show were Lea’s Christmas present and she had been looking forward to it for months. It was the first concert the two girls - who are both leading young golfers - had attended.

The sisters had gone into the gig together, while mum Marie waited for them back at their hotel, ready to collect them afterwards.

Marie was walking back up to the Arena when the suicide bomb exploded at 10.35pm. Inside, the girls were in seats at the side of the venue.

Kelvin said: ’Lea rang me from inside. She was hysterical. She thought it was a gun and someone had been shot. She couldn’t get in touch with Marie. She was really shocked, really scared.

’She passed the phone to Ana who said they were getting evacuated. It was just chaos, everyone was pushing and shoving to get out.

’I told them to make their way back to the hotel and I would try to get in touch with their mum.

’I was at home not being able to do anything about it, sick with worry. I was absolutely petrified. I couldn’t get in touch with Marie as there was no network.’

Kelvin texted Marie to say the girls had been evacuated and were making their way back to the hotel but it was half an hour before she texted back to say she was safe - and another half an hour before she was able to ring him from the hotel with their news that they had been reunited.

He said: ’Our girls are fine, just shaken up. They were not harmed in any way.’

Kelvin, who runs a tyre-fitting business in Peel owned by his father Peter, said security at the venue had appeared pretty lax, the girls having been able to walk in without anyone checking their bags.

He said: ’It was just kids and young families. Our thoughts are with them.

’They were all hoping to have a fantastic time and by the end of the evening their whole world had been turned upside down.’

Marie and the two children, who are both students at Queen Elizabeth II High School, are now home. Ana became one of the island’s youngest ever golfing champions in 2014.

She is a member of the England girls under-18s golf team while sister Lea plays for the England girls under-16s.