A charity campaign ’Manx for Mancs’ has been launched which will mean that island sales of a poetry book written by a homeless man from Manchester will raise funds for the city’s homeless charity ’Invisible Cities’.

The charity trains people who have experienced homelessness to work as walking tour guides of their town city, putting their unique local knowledge to use.

Maughold woman Roisin Quinn, originally from Manchester, organised the initiative, having gotten involved with Invisible Cities at the beginning of lockdown.

She had previously worked with street support teams helping the homeless in Liverpool, where she went to university.

Being unable to physically help Invisible Cities from the island during the pandemic, she decided to create this Manx connection by arranging for the sale of homeless Mancunian Danny’s debut poetry book ’Off the Cobbles’ in the island.

The publication of the book was funded by the profits from the Invisible Cities tours and is described by the charity as ’a deeply-moving first-hand account of homelessness in modern Britain.

’Urgent and mind-opening, Danny talks frankly of his own personal failings and of a society at risk of losing compassion, and losing itself in a whirlpool of indifference.’

Roisin also told Island Life that Danny is ’obsessed’ with the Isle of Man and that his dream is to experience the TT. She continued: ’Danny is such a character.

’I haven’t met him in person, only virtually, but he often creates thank you videos for those buying his book on the island.

’After living on the streets for five years, he discovered a love for poetry and has been able to express his experiences through his poems.

’His tour in Manchester includes snippets of poems from the book and those who purchase it will see that he openly and honestly shares some of the most personal moments of his life.’

’From the get-go I was hooked, and it made me think about homelessness in a completely different light’

Speaking about the importance of the charity, Roisin said: ’Here in the Isle of Man, we’re relatively lucky when it comes to people living on the streets, but in Manchester the crisis is only going to get worse after this year.

’Because of the pandemic, the guides in Manchester haven’t been able to deliver as many tours - rather than putting a halt to the progress these individuals have made, we created the Manx supporting Mancs project to help Invisible Cities continue to support and train those affected by homelessness.’

So far, £2,140 has been raised for the charity in the island, which Roisin said included a ’very generous’ donation by Maughold-based groundwork contracting company T.C.Q Ltd.

The charity stated: ’We can’t begin to thank everyone over in the Isle of Man for the success of this project so far.

’The overwhelming response has been more than we could have imagined - Danny feels like a local celebrity with the number of books he’s signing.’

Signed copies of the book are available for £20 at Mother T’s coffee shop in Ramsey, as well as online at: https:// invisible-cities.org/shop

by Paul Hardman

Twitter: @iomnewspapers