Dear Friends,
And so, Captain Sir Tom Moore has died. To reach 100 is a good effort, even by today’s standards, and yet the suddenness of his passing has shocked the nation. We had immortalised him. His fantastic achievement in raising so much money for the NHS during the 1st lockdown was phenomenal in itself and he was rightly honoured for it. But he also became something of a ‘poster boy’ on behalf of the many other ‘unsung heroes’ who gave of themselves with equal endeavour; to raise money, to collect and distribute food, clothing and other necessary consumables, to organise community support activities, – I was particularly struck by impromptu choirs that sprung up in blocks of flats as people took to their balconies to join in to sing with each other – to create contact support networks via telephone, text, e/mail, letter, and there are many other examples…In our own local area, we had the poignant example of Arif Hossein who just recently died from Covid. During the 1st lockdown he would produce large numbers of home made Pakoras which he would then deliver to anyone who wanted them…It will be interesting, to say the least, to see just how much of this ‘community spirit’ is sustained when we do eventually return to something like what we used to know as ‘normality’. Will it be such that what we have experienced during these last 12 months, with more to come, has so profound an effect on us that we cannot but be ‘different’ in our attitudes, our priorities, our relationships, our social, our political, even our religious involvement. Or will we breathe such a huge sigh of relief when it is finally all over that all we will want to do is draw a line under it, forget all about it, and get back to living life as we used to…And we should not forget that while all of this has been happening, there have been many people who have had to continue to work regardless, just to ensure that the rest of us were not too inconvenienced by having to be ‘locked down’. To take one example, bus drivers have been very affected by the pandemic, with a sizeable number becoming infected, a significant proportion of whom died as a consequence. To them, you can add shop workers, home carers, delivery drivers, posties, plumbers, electricians, and other similar tradespeople all of whom, even when the pandemic was at its height, were still expected to be there when we needed them…to say nothing of health service personnel, teachers, and the Police…Sir Tom stirred the conscience of the nation; indeed, he shamed many of us into realising that there was more that we could do/should do/ought to be doing to support each other. And I do hope that he will not have ‘laboured in vain’. That will be up to us. We will have to decide for ourselves. We used to talk of creating ‘a land fit for heroes to live in’. Thanks to the heroic efforts of the likes of Sir Tom we have the opportunity to make such a vision a reality, but only if we dare…