Phoenix Nights actor and comedian Justin Moorhouse has lent his voice to a poem for the Covaid-19 appeal.
The Manchester Evening News joined forces with the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity in April to raise money for the most vulnerable people living across the region’s ten boroughs.
The appeal has raised more than £70,000 thanks to your incredible kindness.
To find out more and donate, visit here.
Now Mr Moorhouse will be reading ‘Rainbows’, penned by Matthew Kelly, a service manager at Wigan Council. It urges people to ‘be kind, be mindful, be peaceful’ as the UK continued to emerge from lockdown.
It comes three months after his first poem, a tribute to the NHS, was read by Christopher Ecclestone on BBC’s The One Show.
Mr Kelly, from Salford said he was inspired to write ‘Rainbows’, which is about coming out the other side of lockdown, because he ‘needed a bit of hope’.
“Me and my partner have got five children between us and she’s going out as a district nurse and treating the community and patients with Covid-19.
“I need that bit of hope really, for the day where things go back to normal again and I did worry as time went on I wouldn’t see that day.”
Mr Kelly stressed he acknowledged that the fight against the coronavirus isn’t over.
“It’s not acknowledging that it’s all over and we can all get back to normal.
“It’s saying we’ve come through a storm and actually the clouds are clearing and rainbows are coming.”
Mr Kelly said he wanted the poem to serve as a reminder of how people felt at the beginning of lockdown.
He said: “We remembered how we felt back when Boris said you mustn’t go out and we all sat there by the telly, that was a scary time.
“[But] there was this feeling of people going actually we’ve got a bit of time out where we can try and improve ourselves as individuals and as a society.
“The amount of people who made pledges to come out fitter, more well read and said ‘I’m not going to drive like I used to, I’m not going to consume, like I used to’.”
He continued: “The end of the poem talked about let’s not forget, we’re giving thanks for the chance to enjoy these little things, hugging more, laughing more, being in the moment more because we were just so fast paced as a society, how much we consumed, what we were doing to the planet.
“Within a matter of months, the skies were clear, the roads were calm, wildlife was coming back and there were lots of really big improvements to the environment as well and again that’s another thing we need to remember, not going back to old ways.”
Mr Kelly said he doesn’t want people to forget that the country got through lockdown by ‘being kind, looking after each other’ and ‘supporting each other’.
He said: “I want people to reflect on and not forget how when we were all at home, you’d have given anything to hug your family, to go to the park, to go for a walk, with friends, go for a meal, go for a drink, spend time with your loved ones, and that’s all we wanted to do.
“I wish I’d been more mindful in those moments, enjoyed those little things more because we were desperate to get our hair cut and to go to the cinema and what I’m really doing in the poem is reminding how we were such a fast paced society we certainly were, please let’s not go back to that.”
How you can donate
All money raised through Covaid-19 will be used to support the region’s most vulnerable people, including elderly people with no support network, people with health conditions, those fleeing domestic violence, rough sleepers, people struggling with caring for others, workers who have lost their jobs and families pushed onto the breadline.
To find out more and donate, visit here.
Any amount you can spare, no matter how big or small, is helping to make a huge difference.
All the money raised will be distributed via the mayor of Greater Manchester Mayor's charity.
