A WINSFORD artist honoured the lives of the 22 victims of the Manchester terror attack by etching their names on an everlasting bouquet.

Lynsey Simpson, of Literary Bouquets, based in Winsford, spent 12 hours over two days to make the bouquet.

She then went to Manchester to pay her respects.

“The attack on Manchester hit me particularly hard. I’d been to the arena many times before, and had also taken my children there,” she said.

“As a mother I was horrified by all of these parents and children being killed. It was heartbreaking.

“I had already planned to go to Manchester to meet a friend before it happened and I wanted to do something special to pay my respects.

“I’ve been making everlasting paper flower bouquets for a while now, and knew it was something I wanted to make.

“I had the idea to print the names on each petal originally, but felt it needed to be bigger.

“Eventually I decided I would make a full bouquet with a middle flower and 22 smaller flowers around it, each flower with the name of a victim on it.”

Lynsey attended St Ann’s Square on Friday with her 13-year-old daughter to lay the flowers with the countless others that have been given by wellwishers.

Lynsey said: “It was a miserable day, never stopped raining, but it was packed full of people paying their respects.

“It’s so surreal, you turn the corner from the busy city and everything just goes calm and silent. You can’t help but have a tear in your eye as you look at the thousands of flowers and tributes laid.

“The row of flowers is so long. You don’t realise. Pictures and video don’t do it justice. We spent a good hour reading letters posted, and looking at all the flowers and tributes laid.

“It was such an emotional experience, but something I’m glad I did.”

Lynsey’s said her young daughter also felt the emotion of the occasion.

She said: “When I said I was going she wanted to come with me to pay her respects too. She was upset as we read some of the messages, you can’t not be. I think she appreciated going.

“It makes you feel like you’ve actually done something, even though it’s such a small gesture.”