A homeless man was given a fiver and instead of using it to buy food – he bought flowers for the Manchester attack memorial site.
Tommy will be a familiar face to regular visitors of St Ann’s Square which has become a place to remember the 22 people who died in the attack – and he is also a member of St Ann’s Church.
Members of the parish say they have been ‘bowled over’ by his selfless actions after hearing how he has been spending his money on flowers instead of meals, according to Manchester Evening News.
On Tuesday – the day after the attack at the arena – Tommy was given £5 by a member of the pubic and instead of buying food, he bought flowers to lay at the memorial site.
Since then he says he has taken six more bunches of flowers to the shrine, spending about £40 all of which has been donated to him by members of the public.
Tommy, asked the M.E.N. not to publish his surname as he says he’s embarrassed about being homeless but said he was ‘determined to do something’ as soon as he heard about the attack.
He even rushed down to the Arena on the night of the explosion to see if there was anything he could do.
He said:
I’ve lost a lot of people in my life but a tragedy like this has hit me personally.
For something like this to happen, for someone to be able to go that far and take innocent people, children – I just don’t get it.
Tommy is not the only ‘homeless hero’ to emerge from the tragedy.
Chris Parker, put his own life at risk to help save others as he was in the arena foyer at the time of the blast.
More than £50,000 has been raised for him in a GoFundMe page which was set up after his actions came to light.
Amazing.
