‘The world has been robbed of a superstar’
Top comic joins tributes to bomb victim
Fcan’t weep for a stranger we never met. Our hearts are now allowed to be broken, for a young man we have never spoken to, and so why are we? We are heartbroken. Why do we feel so sad? We are crying for the boy with a Dierdre Barlow tattoo.”
The comedian, also from Stockport, continued: “I have been thinking about this. If you want to be sad, you be sad. It’s up you how this manifests itself. The world has been robbed of a potential superstar.”
He described how Martyn had ‘touched a lot of people’s lives’ and that it was ‘up to us to decide how important that is to us’.
Mr Manford described the reaction to Martyn’s death as a ‘beautiful surprise’ to his parents to see how many lives were touched ‘by this Stockport legend’.
“If you click on the #bemoremartyn hashtag, you will literally see thousands of people from all over the world from all different walks of life of people Martyn has affected,” he said.
Mr Manford urged people to live life like Martyn had.
He said: “Just live it. There’s no time to hate. There’s barely enough time for love. If you want to talk to that guy or girl you love, then do it today - what are you waiting for? Life is for living. Be more Martyn.”
The comedian finished his video by joking that he hoped Martyn’s mother ‘has made enough butties’ as they were all going to visit later.
After the video, Mr Murray concluded the tribute with a poem dedicated to Martyn in which he paid tribute to a ‘ mixture of Manchester might mixed with Turkish delight’.
Martyn, he said in the poem, simply dealt with aggression ‘with glitter’.
The chairman of the inquiry said: “No one who watched the tributes to Martyn could doubt he was a truly remarkable human being.”