A pub landlord worked with students to raise nearly £1,000 for the families of those who have lost loved ones in the Manchester terrorist atrocity.

Jeremy Peel, who runs The George and Dragon in Liverpool Road, Chester , was upset by what happened up the road in Manchester especially because he is the father of a nine-year-old daughter.

He and pub staff decided they just had to do something so decided to support the ‘We Love Manchester’ emergency fund, set up by the British Red Cross and Manchester City Council to support grieving families.

Jez explained: “There were about half a dozen of us. We just looked at each other and said ‘Come on, let’s do something’.”

The George & Dragon Pub, Liverpool Road, Chester

The Europa League final, which Manchester Utd won 2-0, was televised in many pubs including the George and seemed the perfect focus for a city-wide collection.

Jez got white t-shirts from Primark which were printed with the ‘We Love Manchester’ logo free of charge by A1 Designs in Brook Street. Hobs in Watergate Row printed posters free of charge.

And he was ferried around town by Abbey Taxis at no cost as he gathered donated buckets from £1 shops across the city.

An appeal for volunteers went out on social media thanks to his pal Mike Hannigan and come early evening a group of students turned up at the George ready and willing to help.

Buckets were left at pubs across Chester with customers at the George and elsewhere giving generously to the cause.

Jez Peel, landlord of the George and Dragon, involved his young daughter Melita in the fund-raising efforts as she has been so upset by what happened in the Manchester bomb.

Jez added: “We put something together at short notice. Students gets lots of grief sometimes and I don’t even know the names of those whose who helped. They just turned up. I think everybody has been very very moved by what’s happened and then when we heard yesterday afternoon that a Cheshire police officer was among the deceased.

“The people left behind are going to need support for a long, long time.”

Jez said the community needs to stay united. His wife Meltem is Turkish and a Muslim as is their young daughter Melita, a pupil of Mickle Trafford Village School, who was particularly upset on learning of the death of eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos from Preston where she herself was born.

The buckets will remain in place over the weekend with many pubs organising their own fund-raising efforts.

Jez added: “Please put some money in them if you’re out there.”