The co-founder of Factory Records, Alan Erasmus, has arrived in the Ukraine to make good on a promise to help in the fight against Vladimir Putin's Russian forces.
The 72-year-old, who is struggling with diabetes, flew out of Manchester to Poland last week and travelled by bus over the border to Ukraine.
Before he went, he messaged shocked friends and told them: "I've fought bullies of one kind or another all my life."
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Now in Lviv in the west of the besieged country, as the shelling by the Russians gets ever closer, he has told the M.E.N. about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in front of his eyes as he helps the thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting further east.
He clarified: "My plan wasn't to come and shoot people: I'm 72, my eyesight is crap, my hearing is even worse. It was always to identify areas of donation."
He arrived in Lviv at 1.30am, at the same time a large number of refugees were just arriving from further east. Alan shared a hostel room with a family about to be separated - the husband was leaving for the front.
"The plan was initially to make my way to Kyiv, I had the number for the head aid coordinator but his advice was to stay at Lviv and now I'm based here while I work things out.
"I've managed to book a room here for ten days, it was difficult to find somewhere to stay at first - when I arrived I was walking around the square at 1.30am full of people, families dressed for winter, with all their luggage as if going on holiday.
"But this was hundreds of people with their kids, their cats and dogs in cages, their entire lives packed up to leave."
Alan said people in Lviv are living in 'constant fear' of what will happen next.
He said: "Lviv is some way from the east, but there is fear, people are nervous, and frightened in this situation.
"There was a family I spoke to, I saw them going into a taxi loaded up with all their belongings, they were heading to Romania, because they fear the use of chemical weapons next.
"You find there is a lot of stress and strain on people's faces, but the spirit is anger and determination to take on the Russians, and they will. The spirit of people is lion-like, they are very defiant."
Despite his own recent diagnosis as diabetic, Alan felt compelled to undertake his mercy mission to Ukraine to do anything that he could to help.
He said: "I've recently been diagnosed as diabetic, my diabetic nurse actually called me on Monday or Tuesday to say 'where are you? You have an appointment here' and I said I'm sorry I can't make it I'm in Ukraine. My meds aren't quite right so it's affecting my energy levels a little bit.
"At 72 I should have planned it a bit better, but I saw this coming up and I just thought how can I help? I will go and find recipients of aid. You sit there and see something like this, and for me I just booked a ticket to Krakow, it was the closest I could get."
Already Alan is collaborating with the Legacy of War Foundation, an international charity lending support to civilians affected by conflict, and has set up a JustGiving page which he is urging people to visit.
Alan said: "My plan wasn't to come and shoot people, I'm 72, my eyesight is crap, my hearing is even worse, it was always to identify areas of donation.
"I'm hoping to get £10,000 on the JustGiving site. I call it a Manc mission.
"My personal safety, it's not something I think about. It's about getting people to donate, donate what you can and those funds can be used maybe not today, but at some point they will help."
Echoing comments he made to friends before he left Manchester, he said: "I have fought bullies of one kind or another all my life. Putin is no different. This is a very important moment in history."
When in Krakow, he made contact with a project which is finalising the publication of illustrated children’s Polish/Ukrainian dictionaries so that refugee children won’t lose out on their education and can start to learn again without much interruption in Polish schools.
Alan is also in identifying other refugee projects in Krakow who are ready to accept funds and which will support young families in need.
He said: "Seeing the queues of refugees looks normal at first glance. There are lines of western European families, not the typical images of refugees familiar from the TV, in smart winter clothing as if they were queuing at the airport for a ski-ing holiday.
"When you get closer, you realise that it is no holiday that they are on – they have all the belongings they can carry, kids with pull along cases, cats and dogs on leads and bags and they are actually fleeing from the Russians."
"This is a huge displacement of people – they all need our help."
You can follow Alan's journey on Instagram or visit his JustGiving page.
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READ more on the Ukraine crisis and Boris Johnson's no-fly zone pledge here
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