When the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that from one minute past midnight on March 23rd 2020, we must Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives, the whole country embraced it. But how many of us would have thought that a year later we would still be in lockdown?
Street were empty, people queued up to get their supermarket shop done once a week and each and every Thursday the nation ventured out onto their doorsteps to thank those who couldn’t stay at home – our key workers.
In the past 12 months Swindonians have seen the emergence of more ‘heroes’ being celebrated along with the NHS, Police and Fire Service. Teachers, supermarket workers, bus drivers and the HGV drivers who deliver our food all becoming appreciated so much more than before.
Over the past twelve months we have all learned a whole new vocabulary. How many times had you used the words ‘social-distancing’, hand sanitiser,’ ‘pandemic’ and ‘bubbles’ in normal conversation before last March? Did you know what furlough was? and surely ‘covidiots’ will become the latest word to be added to the new Oxford Dictionary.
People now appreciate the small things in life that many took for granted twelve months ago – the things we simply have not been able to do for most of the past year – hugging our nearest and dearest, meeting up with family and friends, going for a pint in the pub or maybe a meal out in a restaurant.
Even being able to go to a football match at The County Ground (although recent results have not gone our way) is high up there on many peoples post-lockdown wishlists.
So today, as the Prime Minister says restrictions are easing ‘once and for all’ as we look back on 12 months of lockdown, we should remember the 126,172 people that have died of Covid 19 in the national minute’s silence being held at midday and people are also being encouraged to stand on their doorsteps at 8pm with a light as part of an initiative by end-of-life charity Marie Curie.
