Goodbye Metro Man: Tribute to 80-year-old who delivered our paper to the elderly every day

Every day for the last few years, Brian Edmonson performed an act of kindness to tackle loneliness in his neighbourhood.

The 80-year-old loaded up a shopping trolley with copies of Metro he collected from buses near his home in Pendlebury, Greater Manchester.

He would then walk that trolley for three miles, handing the newspaper out to the elderly and lonely.

But then in November, Brian was diagnosed with cancer. For a few weeks he continued to hand out Metro until he became too unwell and died on January 11.

As a tribute to the Manchester Metro Man, his family have put a copy of the paper in his coffin for his funeral which will take place today.

One local touched by Brian’s daily deliveries, Jean Wadeson, said: ‘Brian will be sorely missed by so many of the residents of the Westwood Estate.

‘Especially, the older, and many housebound residents to whom he has delivered free newspapers since before lockdown in 2020.

‘He would often stop and have a chat on the doorstep to people when posting the newspaper, and in some cases he was the only person they spoke to in person throughout the day.’

Brian was first a paperboy as a child in the 1950s before taking up again as a retiree before the Covid-19 pandemic.

For six years straight, Brian would head out after breakfast or after a visit to the gym to collect Metro copies from his closest bus routes.

He would then cart them around the estate all morning on foot with a shopping trolley.

After breaking for lunch, the retiree would pick up a further stack and continue his deliveries.

After clocking up two to three miles on foot, Brian would then even drop off a newspaper at the houses of his daughters Claire and Elaine further out from the estate.

Claire, 47, told Metro: ‘Once he started talking to you that was it – you were having a paper.

‘I can’t tell you the amount of condolence cards I’ve had of people who lived on other end of the estate from him, but who he gave a paper to.

‘He wanted to reach out to people who were housebound. It gave him a lot of purpose to be able to chat to people.’

Brian’s newspaper run kept him on his feet for two to three miles every day and was central to his fitness as he got older.

A cancer diagnosis at the end of November 2024 did not stop him delivering the papers and doctors continued to be impressed with his physical condition.

At a check-up in December, one anesthetist noted he had ‘never met an 80 year old paper boy before.’

It was only a stroke a few weeks later that stopped him from picking up and distributing Metros.

‘A lot of people said, “We were missing our papers, where was Brian?”,’ said Claire.

‘His deliveries meant some elderly people had contact with another person, when they may not have see anyone else that day.

‘They would not be able to read the news if they could not get out.’

In honour of Brian’s Metro drop-offs, his family are planning to hand out copies of the newspaper to guests at his funeral on February 6.

A Metro paper will also be placed on his coffin as his family and friends lay him to rest.

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