'I’ve had people hug me before... I feel like I'm doing a good thing for people'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Driver Ben is carefully examining a bunch of red roses – peeling off their plastic wrapping and dead-heading any wilting stems.

We’re standing on an ordinary residential road somewhere between Blackley and Moston, looking for an address among a row of identical 1930s-built houses.

It’s a gorgeous late autumn day, resplendent blue skies but glitteringly cold, the crisp leaves carpeting the floor a burnished auburn-gold, everything sparkling with frost.

In the distance, the snow-dusted shoulders of the Pennines are basking in the November sun. READ MORE: 'We've seen demand to help families in need double - but we almost had to close' Ben is no florist, and the roses are a little dog-eared, bearing a ‘reduced’ sticker, but they’ll perk up once they’ve been placed in water, drooping stems now deftly removed.