THEY had not been expecting it: not here and not like this in a community that prides itself on being one of the most uneventful multicultural spots in Britain.

Yesterday, though, Beeston had no choice but to wake up and confront itself in a horrible new light — as the place that had harboured some of the most murderous terrorists this country has seen.

Behind yellowed net curtains disbelieving faces peered out on to narrow streets thick with police, men in white masks and cordon tape, and told themselves that there must have been a mistake.

Even when, by late morning, the rumours seeped through that local young men who had been missing for days might have planted the bombs, they still refused to accept it, insisting doggedly that “you don’t find those kind of people around here”.

In the streets around Colenso Mount, Colwyn Road and Stratford Street, where houses exactly like their own were being taken apart by experts in boiler suits, they racked their memories for signs they had missed. “The thing that frightens me most is that this would have been the last place I’d have looked for a bomber”, said a man called John, watching from Tempest Street. “I don’t know much about these lads but by all accounts they were OK, nice people.”

Less than five minutes after arriving in Beeston a black man touched my arm and said: “You won’t write that everyone is turning on the Muslims, will you? Because it’s not true. This is a nice neighbourhood.”

Others were less forthcoming. “Please leave us alone,” said an elderly woman going to the local shop. “This is a terrible time.” Women dressed in shalwar kameez sat with their front doors open on to the street, one eye on the local television news, the other on the activity outside.

Jodie Reynolds, 40, a converted Muslim with a Muslim daughter and partner, said she was terrified of bombers striking in her community. “These people are selfish, inconsiderate cowards.” Sarah Stowe, who lives near Stratford Street, said: “We’ve got to be careful not to tar everyone with the same brush. The vast majority of the Muslim community are totally against what has gone on.”

The collective disbelief is understandable. Beeston, though certainly deprived and punctuated at every street corner with rotting mattresses and stinking skips, has little history of trouble. Unlike in Oldham and Bradford, white and ethnic communities have lived quietly side by side here for decades. The red-brick houses on a higgledy-piggledy rabbit warren of streets, with sheets flapping on washing lines, look like the settings for northern working- class Sixties films. A closer inspection finds that these days they are home to a more colourful mix of people: Pakistanis, Jamaicans, Bengalis, Indians, Ghanaians, Romanians, Rwandans, Poles, Russians.

As chance would have it, many residents were already waking when the police first swooped at 6.30am because of the sweltering heat. But there was initial confusion.

In nearby Dewsbury, where two other homes were raided, neighbour Eunice Patel said a police van had blocked the road and an officer told her it was simply a drugs raid.

At 11.30am armed officers moved up past Leeds University along Hyde Park Road to the heart of studentland and surrounded a building, a modern, purpose-built student block of flats, evacuated the area and blew off the front door. In the afternoon, when this news reached the streets, the reality that this was a big, big deal, began to sink in. But there was no panic and certainly no hatred. I saw white mothers collecting Asian children with their own and vice versa. Even as they stepped around police cordons and shouted over the din of a helicopter, there were no suspicious looks. Young white men, barechested and driving rattling old cars, shouted and swore a bit but not in a racist way. They were excited by the presence of so many television cameras.

Mumir Shah, the imam of Stratford Street Mosque, said he spoke for the community when he said he felt horror at the London bombings. “At prayers on Friday I told them that all human beings are brothers because of our grandfather, Adam,” he said. “Our message is one of peace and friendship.”

So, unable to know what else to do and with their community swarming with police, people simply carried on as before, chatting in the sunshine, clearing out their cars and talking about going to watch War of the Worlds at the cinema. And just up the road from Colwyn Road, the local backstreet chip shop, South Leeds Fisheries, was doing a roaring trade. It is owned by Mumtaz Tanweer whose son, Shehzad, is one of the suspected bombers.

Just like London, Beeston was going about its business as usual.

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