A BARROW tattoo artist has been inundated with requests to recreate the iconic Manchester Bee after she vowed to donate the proceeds to terrorist attack victims.

Mum-of-one Carly Wojcik is bracing herself for a full diary after she received hundreds of messages about her offer to ink the bee and give the money raised to a fundraising campaign to help those affected by the terrorist attack which rocked the city on Monday.

"I got a message from a customer suggesting I do it," the 29-year-old said.

"I wasn't sure if many people locally would be interested but I've had hundreds of messages from people asking about it, and it's just snowballed from there."

In a twist of fate, both Carly and her nine-year-old daughter Porshe had planned to go to Monday's concert at the Manchester Arena but opted instead to attend a Bruno Mars gig at the same venue a week earlier.

"What happened in Manchester this week has really affected me," Carly said.

"Me and my daughter were at the arena the week before to watch Bruno Mars and she kept asking to go to the Ariana Grande gig too but I decided she couldn't have that much time off school."

Carly's friend, Sarah Steele, has also donated her own time to help at the Sweet Art Tattoos salon in Rawlinson Street, given the speed at which appointment slots are being snapped up.

Many other tattoo artists, in Manchester and beyond, are also offering to donate profits from any tattoos bearing the bee to the victims of Monday's attack.

The bee has become a symbol of Mancunian pride and defiance in light of Monday's terrorist attack, with the logo swarming social media as a sign of unity since 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert.

The worker bee features on Manchester's coat of arms and symbolises the city’s hard-working past as an Industrial Revolution hub, with workers being called “busy bees”.


Coincidentally, Barrow's own coat of arms also features a bee.

The town's logo incorporates a steam ship, emblematic of Barrow's shipping and port related industries, a band containing a bee and arrow to reflect the town's name (B-arrow), a stag and serpent taken from the crests of the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Buccleuch.

On top of the coat of arms is a ram's head to represent Barrow's first mayor, Sir James Ramsden.