Our city’s finest will be flocking to the Kimpton tonight for a celebration of Manchester’s unsung heroes. The Manchester Evening News Pride of Manchester awards, in partnership with TSB, honour Mancunians with incredible stories to tell.
Hosted by Kym Marsh, the evening will see extraordinary Mancs honoured for the amazing things they do to bring together and nurture Manchester’s communities. This year’s winners include courageous kids, amazing fundraisers, and awe-inspiring police officers - all of whom make Manchester the place it is today.
Here’s a full list of the winners, and all you need to know about the incredible work they do. The M.E.N. Pride of Manchester Awards, in partnership with TSB, will premiere on YouTube on Tuesday May 17 at 7pm.
Spirit of Manchester Award
Prof Erinma Bell MBE DL, 57, Manchester
An activist and campaigner, Erinma has devoted her life to protecting young people from violent crime and giving them opportunities to build a bright future.
She founded a local community organisation called CARISMA (Community Alliance for Renewal, Inner South Manchester Area) in 2003, after she witnessed a shooting with her husband Raymond.
“A friend of mine was shot and shot right in front of me,” she recalls. “From that night I thought enough is enough, because I didn't want to have to go through that ever again. We needed to get local people to own the problem and concrete action.”
Erinma, who grew up in Moss Side, formed CARISMA to work with under-25s across South Manchester and counter the growing gun and gang violence in Moss Side and surrounding neighbourhoods. In 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, recognized Erinma’s efforts in his book Britain’s Everyday Heroes, and the following year she was awarded the MBE for voluntary services to her community.
She was made Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester in 2011. And in 2017, a statue of Erinma made from melted-down guns was placed in Manchester Town Hall in tribute to her contribution. It was the first statue of a woman to go on display in the building's iconic sculpture hall.
Child of Courage
PixieBelle Sykes, 9, Ashton-under-Lyne
PixieBelle has endured four brain operations, lost her hair three times, and has also lost sight in one of her eyes after gruelling chemotherapy treatment.
She was diagnosed with pilocytic astrocytoma, a rare tumour behind her eye, aged five. In December 2018, after 21 weeks of chemotherapy, she had an adverse reaction to the drugs, and had to start all over again with different medication.
Now the youngster is just one of 60 people worldwide benefiting from a new experimental treatment, which unlike chemotherapy, is taken in tablet form. Mum Katie says: “She has been so incredibly brave and has inspired family, friends and people from all around her community to fundraise for the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Charity. In our area, everyone knows PixieBelle, she is a shining light.”
Determined to give back the family found out the hospital needed a new MRI scanner for children needing brain surgery. Together with friends, a local football club and her school they have raised more than £45,000 towards the fund through various fundraising events.
Special recognition
James Anderson
James is the founder of community interest company Depher, which provides free or heavily-subsidised services to keep people warm and safe.
Since 2017, he and his team have helped more than 39,000 families since March 2017 especially with free boilers, plumbing and heating emergency services, free bathrooms, funeral costs and children's surprise birthday parties in and around his hometown, Burnley. James’ wife Babs, also often pitches in to help.
During 2020 to 2021 they supplied £60,000 of PPE and food to families, care homes, front line workers and emergency services.
James has another, personal motivation. He and Babs lost their baby son William in 2011 when he was just 16 weeks old. “I promised him, that day we turned off the machine, that I would be the man he would not grow up to be. I know that he is up there, on a cloud, kicking his feet and saying ‘nice one dad’.
Special Recognition
Mike Palmer, Manchester
Mike, a firefighter at Manchester Airport, has devoted his life to raising money for others. When his daughter Beth took her own life in March 2020, aged just 17, that mission became personal.
Beth was a budding performer, singer and dancer, with a vast friendship group and active social life. “She had an amazing talent for acting, dancing and singing. She played gigs, and had just signed her first record deal - Beth had the world at her feet,” explains Mike.
But when lockdown began Beth saw her life changing. “She hated the fact that she could not finish and graduate college. All her plans - like her 18th birthday party - concerts, festivals and her work as a singer were being cancelled one by one, and in addition she was unable to see her friends,” he says.
The loss of their daughter devastated the family and their wider community. Through the charity PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, Mike met two other dads who were grieving the loss of daughters in similar circumstances.
Mike, and the two other bereaved dads - Andy Airey and Tim Owen - completed an epic 300-mile walk over 15 days between their homes in Greater Manchester, Cumbria, and Norfolk. They called themselves ‘3 Dads Walking’ and raised more than £800,000 for Papyrus.
Teenager of Courage
Liam Preece, 15, Stalybridge
Liam has endured two years of gruelling treatment for bone cancer, but despite his own challenges, he is determined to try and help others feel better.
The Stalybridge teenager was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2020. After chemotherapy in Manchester, Liam was referred to The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London. At his lowest point, his mouth was so blistered that he couldn’t eat or drink for ten days and he had further surgery to remove nodules from his lungs.
But as Liam’s elder sister Chloe, 20, explains: “He is constantly head up, and determined to smash it.”
Keen to help others going through treatment, Liam - who loves YouTube - started his own YouTube channel called ‘My Name is Liam’, to document his experiences and build awareness. His upbeat and honest clips and commentary have seen him attract 10,000 subscribers and shout-outs from other gamers and YouTubers.
TSB Community Hero
Jane Gregory
Jane was inspired to set up Salford Survivors after two local women were murdered by their abusive ex-partners. She had grown up in a violent household herself, spending time in shelters and homeless units and was watching history repeat itself within her own family.
Jane, 51, had been in a difficult relationship with the father of her five children and was increasingly worried that daughter Hannah was repeating the same pattern.
Determined to help her daughter, and spurred on by the deaths of Linzi Ashton and Leanne McNuff, Jane set up the Salford Survivor Project in 2013.
With a team of 25 volunteers, Jane has helped thousands of women - and men - over the past nine years. She and her team accompany people to criminal or family court, police meetings and housing and medical appointments. The project also has a helpline that is open seven days a week, manned by operators with lived experience of abuse.
The Marcus Rashford Children's Champion
Lydia Ina, Manchester
Lydia has spent decades fostering children. After her own children moved out she would care for as many as five youngsters at a time in her home in Didsbury and later in Fallowfield. She has given a home to around 300 during 23 years as a foster carer with Manchester City Council.
"Children are my life," she says. "I looked after children for 23 years as a foster carer, brought up six children, and I will work until I drop with children.”
She was on a trip to Nigeria, where she was born, and in the south east of the country when she met orphans and children disowned by their families due to accusations of sorcery.
On her return to Manchester, she was inspired to start a charity to help them, the Gapolunya Foundation, named after her late mother.
It opened an orphanage in Nigeria in 2012, with 7 children and has grown to 25 children who are all in school. Lydia’s efforts are now supported by a team of trustees in Manchester. They also provide street children with food, shelter, clothing and access to education, support subsistence farmers and provide malaria prevention measures.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Professor Tony Redmond OBE, 70, Failsworth
Professor Tony Redmond, 70, founded UK-Med, which has deployed doctors around the world to deal with humanitarian disasters since 1988. He’s one of the world’s leading experts in disaster response, and set up field hospitals in west Africa during the Ebola crisis, in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake and the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. Whilst working in Sarajevo, he was even shot at.
His experience in disaster zones saw him appointed to help lead Manchester’s coronavirus fight as medical director of NHS Nightingale North West.
He was born in Failsworth, Manchester and qualified from medical school in the city. He later set up UK-Med, a pioneering team of medics ready to save lives anywhere in the world. He has been at the forefront of international disaster relief ever since, leading teams in conflict and disaster zones across the world.
UK-Med has been working in Ukraine since the outbreak of the recent conflict. They have established a system of mobile clinics to provide primary healthcare to those displaced from their homes by war, and have deployed specialist surgeons to frontline hospitals to help treat the severely wounded. They are also training the emergency services in mass casualty management and members of the public as “first responders”.
Young Fundraisers
Ruben and Elena Evans-Guillen, 11, Warrington
Ruben and Elena, from Warrington, were diagnosed with ADHD when they were six. Their parents Mark and Mercedes, determined to channel their huge energy into something positive, asked the twins if they wanted to help out in their local community.
Now aged 11, the children have since carried out dozens of feats and challenges to raise money for several charities. In 2017, they embarked on a year-long 100km running target to raise money for the Making Waves Appeal at Warrington and Halton Hospital.
At the beginning of lockdown in 2020 the siblings completed a summer decathlon challenge with three-time Paralympic champion Stephen Miller and a winter superhero 100km cycling campaign to raise funds for portable lung suction machines to help vulnerable children in the fight against Covid19.
Now 11, Ruben and Elena have been steadfast in their efforts with a strong desire to change perceptions of children with ADHD and to highlight to others that amazing things can be achieved when channelling their enthusiasm into something positive. They have raised more than £45,000 for charity, mainly for NHS-related charities, as well as other local charitable organisations.
Special Recognition
Tracey and Phil Payton, Manchester
Tracey and Phil are the driving force behind the ‘End of Treatment bells’ initiative, which helps people celebrate reaching milestones or finishing treatment in more than 200 hospitals across the UK.
The couple, from Manchester, were moved to action after their then eight-year-old daughter Emma received NHS-funded Proton Beam Therapy for a tumour in Oklahoma in 2013. They saw how American hospitals encouraged patients to ring a bell to mark their final treatment.
Emma recalls: “They had a bell in the lobby that you could ring when you finished your treatment; this astounded us because there wasn’t anything like this in the UK. We just finished our treatment and went home.”
Inspired by the uplifting effect of ringing the bell for Emma, the family decided to bring the concept to the UK. The very first bell was installed at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in time for Emma to be the first child to ring it at the end of her treatment.
Today hundreds of their bells are in place across the UK for children and adults. Tracey said: “Ringing the bell was such a monumental part of reaching the end of that particular stage of Emma’s treatment journey - we are so proud that we’ve donated over 360 bells to hospitals and treatment centres since then.”
Emergency Services Award
PC Simon Toft and PC Alicia Snowden
PC Toft and PC Snowden were first on the scene at the medical centre in Stockport where Michael Brannigan was armed with three kitchen knives and a meat cleaver and threatening to stab staff and patients. Terrified receptionists had locked themselves in consultation rooms while a doctor held a door shut and tried to reason with Brannigan, who had robbed a pharmacy and attacked a stranger minutes earlier.
At first PC Toft thought Brannigan was a patient until he lunged towards him with a metal pole. PC Snowden saw he was also armed with knives and yelled out a warning.
At that point PC Toft fired his Taser, but Brannigan simply dropped the pole and ripped the two barbs from his chest.
Without hesitation, PC Snowden lunged towards him, kicked the pole away and struck him to the ground giving PC Toft the chance to fire his Taser at Brannigan for a further 19 seconds before PC Snowden helped overpower him.
Greater Manchester Police Federation Chair Stu Berry said: “This was a dangerous, dynamic and escalating situation and for Alicia in particular it was so soon into her service as a police officer. She deserves high praise for how she handled herself and her actions that day. As does Simon – for both his outstanding police work and how he cared and guided his colleague.”
Brannigan later admitted weapons offences and assault and was jailed for three years.
