The people choosing positivity over pessimism in Peterborough

At a time when the news can often seem like it’s only filled with stories of doom and despair, residents of a city where a mural preaches the importance of hope are offering a different viewpoint.

“Everyone seems really down,” I said. “Where’s the hope?”

I was chatting to colleagues about one of our recent programmes.

It struck me that – for understandable reasons – many, if not all, of the contributors seemed pretty hacked off with the state of things.

So, what would happen if we went and looked for stories of hope, rather than despair?

Thousands of vehicles drive past a mural of Atiq Rehman every day.

Now 40, the brightly coloured image of the motivational speaker and charity campaigner is part of Peterborough’s Hello My Beautiful People.

It depicts him hugging a homeless man, alongside the motto with which he begins his social media videos.

Meeting Atiq there means frequent interruptions from drivers who recognise him. His phone barely stops buzzing.

“This is what we do: we believe in hope and we run with it,” he tells me.

Is he more hopeful today than he was last week, or last year?

Atiq doesn’t hesitate. “100% yes, because I’m still alive,” he says.

“There’s two things that we get every single day: a chance and a choice.

“The chance is that I’m alive today… God’s given me another chance to be alive today.

“So the choices that I make are I’m going to wake up, I’m going to do my thing and I’m going to go and save lives.”

Can he understand that some people are, as I put it, “a little bit depressed”?

“I don’t think the word ‘little’ justifies it. I think they’re in the most darkest place ever,” he says.

“Nobody’s really recovered from Covid. I lost my brother…”

Atiq, a rapid speaker, unexpectedly breaks off, becoming tearful.

“I’ve not spoken about it for ages, but I lost my brother,” he continues, wiping his eye.

He is referring to his cousin Ali Hussein, who died in his early 30s.

“He was the first Covid death in Peterborough. I lost my brother in Covid and I’ve never got over that. None of my family have.”

But he adds that while Ali “might be gone… I ain’t going to let that legacy go for you.

“We’ve got to carry on and keep his name active.”

Hello My Beautiful People was painted by another of Peterborough’s sons, street artist Nathan Murdoch.

I meet him as he decorates the cavernous first floor of the city’s Velvet Panache nightclub, which he says he is turning into a “rave church” for its owners.

But he is perhaps best known for an anti-racism mural that attracted global attention in 2020.

He recalls how he was inspired after watching the film Schindler’s List.

He shows me a tattoo, written in Hebrew on his right forearm and taken from an inscription on Oskar Schindler’s ring.

“It’s ‘He who saves one life, saves the world entire’.

“If I can inspire just one person, it’s worth doing.”

But he also has a message for those who embrace negativity.

“I always challenge people [who say] ‘Peterborough’s not very good’. I’m like ‘What have you done to make a difference?’

“You know, even the smallest difference can have a chain reaction of positivity.”

According to the Office for National Statistics’ opinions and lifestyle survey, about two thirds of us say we are hopeful about our futures.

But lobbying firm 5654, which publishes a yearly Hope Index, says while “people remain fairly hopeful about their personal lives”, its 2025 report noted a ”significant fall in how hopeful people feel about the lives of people across the UK”.

Polly Hurst, 30, says she finds hope in the generosity of others.

For three years, the apprentice emergency medical technician based in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and her son Caden, seven, have been collecting toys for Peterborough City Hospital’s children’s ward.

When we meet they have 260 waiting to be delivered.

The toys have to be new and unopened, she explains.

“Every year I’m always astounded with the generosity of people. It’s always wonderful and amazing,” she says.

“There is still kindness in the world, despite the fact that we hear so much negativity.

“To me, there’s still hope that people do go out of their way and just want to spread joy and happiness.”

“You have two options: you either give up or you have hope.”

Andrew Rayner, 38, is reflecting on the time he was homeless.

For three months in the first half of 2024, he had nowhere to live and ended up sleeping in a tent near Peterborough’s Lido.

He says he “wouldn’t wish it on anyone”; that he experienced dark times, and felt “ashamed”. He still has “mental flashbacks”.

“But I’m also proud of what I’ve done, to a certain degree,” he adds.

For 18 months now, he has been off the streets, housed by Hope into Action, a charity founded in the city 15 years ago.

“I felt like I had to go on that journey,” he tells me.

“When I went through what I went through, I appreciated the little things in life.”

Having experienced “rock bottom”, he adds: “I feel like I can go through anything now.”

Andrew has also helped Hope into Action raise more than £130,000 as the face of its Christmas appeal.

For the charity’s chief executive, Jon Kuhrt, Andrew’s story is an example of “where hope doesn’t come through escaping difficulties”.

“It comes through facing them,” he continues, “turning towards them and saying, ‘What can we do? How can we walk with someone like Andrew from a difficult position, into a far better one?'”

But he adds the charity, which has a Christian mission, doesn’t “want to think of hope just as a concept or a feeling”.

“Actually, it’s a choice. It’s an action.”