A TEENAGE dancer who was injured in the Manchester Arena terror attack has spoken of her joy at returning to the stage for a special Christmas show - seven months on from the atrocity.

Eve Senior, 15, was leaving US star Ariana Grande’s concert with her mum Natalie and younger sister Emilia when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated a home-made device in the foyer of the arena.

The Queensbury youngster was left with a catalogue of injuries, including 18 shrapnel wounds and burns to her leg, in the deadly attack. She is also suffering from a severed nerve in her leg, an injury which recently flared up again and forced her back on to crutches.

But brave Eve, a pupil at Beckfoot Thornton Academy, has fought through hospital visits and three operations to take part in her dance school’s end of year show. She has attended classes at AKA Dance Studios in Queensbury for around eight years and has never missed a show in that time.

At one point she was warned by doctors that she wouldn’t be able to take part, but Eve was determined to prove them wrong and feature in ‘The Magic of Musicals’ show at Bingley Arts Centre, which was held on Saturday.

She said: “I just thought, no, it will be possible. Straight from when they told me I just knew I wasn’t going to sit and watch the show, even if I was in one thing, I knew I wasn’t going to sit and watch everyone do it. I’m not that kind of person, I wouldn’t want to do that.

“Just because this unlucky thing happened to me, it doesn’t mean that it can stop me from doing stuff I’ve done my whole life.”

Thinking about the show, where she featured in a Chicago-inspired number, has helped her get through the horrific ordeal, she said.

Eve said: “I went back [to the studio] in my wheelchair a few weeks after it happened and that was really upsetting to watch. To watch a dance you used to be in and then to watch other people dancing it and knowing that you won’t be able to for such a long time, that was upsetting. I can’t dance the same as I used to be able to and I won’t be able to do that for quite a long time, but it’s a good thing to be able to even do one dance.”

Itziar Mateo Halford, Director of AKA Dance Studios, said the company couldn’t wait to see her back on stage.

“We are all so proud of Eve,” she said. “She is truly inspirational.”

Mum Natalie, 40, said herself and the girls are “very, very lucky to be here”.

A photograph of Eve, taken in the aftermath of the bombing, became one of the defining images of the atrocity and appeared on the fronts of newspapers around the world, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Natalie said: “It has been really, really hard. I think the hardest thing is that you can’t do anything to make it any better. It’s just time. At the beginning, having to watch her crawl up the stairs to get to bed, that was probably one of the hardest things. For all of us as a family, it has been difficult. But then, she has been brilliant. Most of the time she has been so positive, heading towards the show and being determined to get back to dance and being able to do her GCSEs.”

Eve now has physiotherapy and hydrotherapy sessions, as well as check-ups at Pinderfields Hospital for burns and scars. The treatment she has received has inspired her to strive to become a burns nurse herself. Natalie praised the support Eve has received from AKA, saying: “They have been absolutely amazing, pushing her forward with little texts and phone calls.”

Eve’s dad Andrew, 42, Conservative ward councillor for Queensbury, said the support from the village community had been amazing and the couple praised the charity Victim Support for helping them come to terms with what happened. Since the bombing, the family and AKA Dance Studios have been fundraising for Victim Support and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.