Tears were shed and smiles beamed at last night’s glittering Pride of Manchester Awards.
Held in one of the city’s iconic buildings, the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel on Oxford Street, stars and unsung heroes mingled as the best of the second city were celebrated. The ceremony brought together football stars, soap icons, and TV royalty — all in the name of Manchester’s best.
From brave police heroes to those who showed extraordinary kindness in the wake of tragedy, and selfless mine-clearing engineers, plus a host of child fundraisers, every aspect of the good in people was on show.
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“Welcome to the greatest night of the year in the greatest city in the world”, host Kym Marsh said to open proceedings. The Coronation Street and Hear’Say star added: “We are delighted to be joined by familiar faces and our amazing winner. Tonight will make your hearts soar. It will be an unforgettable evening.”
Head of Event, Michelle Linaker, joked: “We do these events all over the country and there’s no better place than Manchester.
“You cheer more, you laugh more, and you drink more!”
The event was opened with a powerful performance from singer songwriter Emilie Marsh. The most striking moment of the evening came when 80-year-old John Jones led the audience through the chorus of Sweet Caroline — on an accordion.
The pensioner has been playing to raise money for hospitals, hospices, and charities in Cheshire for 31 years. In all, he has raised an astonishing £420,000.
Shortly after, Ehinor Otaigbe-Amedu also got the chance of a lifetime — to dance with a Strictly star. She and Aljaz Skorjanec did a short tango after she accepted her Special Recognition award.
Ehinor earned her gong for founding Wonderfully Made Woman, a dynamic charity that helps deal with challenges from isolation to domestic abuse.
That was followed by a heartwarming moment when Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder and Bez, and New Order’s Peter Hook, sang Blue Monday as they presented an award to Greg Davis. Davis set up a community centre in Wythenshawe to stop young people joining gangs.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Figen Murray took to the stage. Explaining why she decided to forgive the Manchester Arena bomber who killed her son Martyn Hett, she said: “It was quite an easy decision.
“I looked at the bigger picture. I saw the terrorist as an innocent baby. I thought ‘you were born innocent and somebody poisoned your mind’.”
Leaving the stage to a standing ovation, she added: “I had the opportunity as a mum to forgive this terrorist to break the cycle of hate.”
There was also time for reflection, when Mines Advisory Group Rae McGrath founder took to the stage. He explained why he started his brave organisation: “In the 1980s, we were doing agricultural work and we already recognised mines were a problem.
“I was walking in the grazing land one day with some of the local Afghans and we found the remains of a little boy. His foot had been blown off by a small land mine.
“The realisation was he must have slowly bled to death. As I spent the next few weeks we realised that almost every village has lost kids and some were never found.
“That for me was awakening that mines were a huge problem in Afghanistan, and if they are a problem there, they must have been a problem wherever they had been used.”
And Peter Garsden, a lawyer who fought for decades to get justice for victims of child sexual abuse, brought home the power of these awards.
“There was something in my guy that said [a client] deserved justice because child abuse is a life sentence,” he told a moved auditorium. “I, as a lawyer, felt there was more to child abuse than cases. There was a need to change the law.”
Summing up the mood of the evening, Marsh said to close the event: “Our winners truly are the pride of Manchester.”
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