Thousands of people have covered a city-centre wall in handwritten messages of support for Manchester and Salford.
Residents and visitors have flocked to the wall, in the Manchester Arndale, to add post-it notes with their personal reflections on Tuesday’s rioting – and their confidence that the cities would bounce straight back.
Teachers, school pupils and police officers were among those leaving personal reflections on the 10-metre strip, next to the Triangle entrance.
By yesterday afternoon the wall was covered in more than 2,000 individual messages.
It was the brainchild of 23-year-old Adam Brookes, who used to work in the Arndale.
Adam placed a stack of post-it notes and pens on a pasting table outside Foot Asylum.
Within hours the table was moved inside to beat the weather and meet the incredible demand by shoppers who wanted to have their say.
Several of the notes were written in foreign languages, including Chinese and Arabic, and another said ‘Thailand loves Manchester’.
Adam, from Prestwich, said: “I wanted to turn a negative into a positive. It started off with about 100 notes, and when I went back I couldn’t believe how many were there.”
One note, from a serving police officer, said: “I am proud to work for GMP to protect and serve the people from Manchester. Business as usual.”
An anonymous shopper – reflecting the anger still felt towards the riots who ransacked the city – wrote: “You don’t represent me, you brain-dead cowardly morons.”
Another said: “Go home. Nobody loves you, scum bags.”
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What a load of Americanised crap
Good! Wonderful! Though I am not in Manchester, but in Sweden, I am putting up a supportive mental post-it! Greetings from Viola!
You, and them , doth protest too much
"" Manchester "" united car'nt be ?????
what a lovely thought!
its easy to tar everybody from manchester with the same brush, scum, rioters, hoodies, looters, etc.......
fair enough it wont repair thousands of pounds worth of damage, fair enough it wont replace stolen stock, but what these mesasges and notes will do is put a little love back into the city manchester and show victims that there is light at the end of a very dark tunnel
were not all a bunch of barstools in manchester and most of us do have hearts and not swinging bricks!!!
What a waste of time and effort, everyday there are dozens of crimes taking place in the city centre and elsewhere yet no one does anything like this to support those victims. Maybe if the cops did there job propertly on the night when rough estimates show there was around 2,000 people rampaging through the streets of Manchester whilst the cops in the main just stood by and let the looters take there booty. So around 200 have been brought before the courts, bug deal when there are another 1,800 to be rounded up. TV screens showed loots by the dozen stripping shops bare with cops in full riot gear stood not 20 yards away looking at the thieves. Surely we should sack these cops for not doing the jobs we pay them for and richly at that, 30k a year to stand in a street being looted whilst in full riot gear no doubt on double time.
I agree the looters and burglars should be inside for years but there should be thousands behind bars after what happened last week in Manchester. I wonder if the shops insurances will be paying out if they find out cops just let the looters take what they wanted. If they don't pay out will the victims be able to sue the cops under the Riot Act for reimbursement of the losses?
I have to agree somewhat with the first comment - this obsession with people needing to express emotions in public is getting a little nauseating. Sticky notes, flowers tied to lamp posts, public books of condolence, Face Book tributes. What took place in Manchester was criminal rioting and looting, not a terrorist attack with the loss of thousands of lives. In a strange way, this sort of action is a symptom of our rotten society - everyone has to feel part of every tragic event or death; it makes them feel a little better about their own selfish, insular lives - it makes them feel special because they believe they've been part of something. If people feel differently, they are accused, abused and called 'morons'. Nice.
Faces of the guilty would be more appropriate on a wall of shame with a lifetime banning order for each of them.
why do people make these pointless gestures? they are in no way conducive to making manchester a better place. if these people really care why dont they do something that will actually make manchester a better place. anyone fancy spending half an hour a week working in the community?
Great but, when I was there, I read one piece of paper going on how the Irish could not destroy our city, nor the Scottish....... By that I presume they mean the 1996 IRA bomb and the Rangers rioters in 2008 ?
Not nice, in view of the fact there are lots of Mancunians, of Irish origin, and many Irish born. Can not lay the blame at the door of all Irish people for "the bomb", nor were the Rangers fans typical of all Scottish people!!! We are not blaming all young people or everyone who has ever worn a hoodie for the looting, are we?!
I hope someone is vetting the notes still! Those of us of Irish origin ARE NOT some enemy within and we love this city as much as the next person!!