Weekly ritual of clapping brings out very best of us
ANNEMARIE PLAS, who devised the “clap for carers”, says the one that occurred two nights ago is the last she will take part in. Even though she possesses the natural authority which comes with being the one who had the original idea – and her words may therefore usher in a falling off in turnouts – I must say that I disagree with her wish to call a halt.
To that end I will certainly be popping my head outside next Thursday evening to see if others are still up for some ceremonial whistling, clapping and saucepan-banging.
Never before in my experience has such a simple concept unlocked so much community goodwill and sent such a moving signal to so many people who deserved to know how much their extraordinary efforts were appreciated. We’ve done it for 10 weeks running and I hope we can do it for another few weeks yet.
Churches and other places of worship may have been closed by coronavirus, but front doors have been opened. In my street the children, many of whom I did not even know existed beforehand, have been among the most ebullient participants.
Another feature of our weekly ritual has been watching the sheepish smiles of pedestrians who just happen to be passing by at 8pm, with some lads even waving and nodding in a cheeky pretence that the applause is meant for them.
THE massive public participation in the applause has certainly had a significant political impact. Politicians of all parties may prefer to highlight their dividing lines, but a consensus has been cemented that the National Health Service merits a future funding settlement that will leave it better placed to cope with its extraordinary workload and also deserves a lasting universal commitment to its ethos and values. Carers working in old people’s homes and other residential facilities for vulnerable groups have learned that they too are appreciated and can now have higher hopes for the creation of a National Care Service to parallel the NHS. After the terrible toll Covid-19 has taken on them and the people they look after, it is the least they deserve.
But the communal clapping has had an equally powerful impact at a neighbourhood level.There is no way, for example, that we would have had our socially-distanced front garden street party to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day were it not for earlier comings together on Thursday evenings.
Another legacy is a WhatsApp group for the street, with messages pinging around to look out for missing cats and offers of help with shopping. That will continue too. In fact, a street full of diverse people with busy lives – many of them commuters – has been reborn as a genuine community. The natural loners, the shy ones of whom it is said “they keep themselves to themselves”, are now seen to wave and smile.
Next week will see a quickening of the pace of relaxation of lockdown rules, with more children back at school and modest back garden gatherings once more permitted. Shops, hairdressers and pubs will be opening up again soon enough.
Many more people will be returning to work.The pace and rhythms of life are starting a long march back towards something like normality.
That is as it should be. Most of us understand that a vibrant economy is essential for the NHS and public services to be well funded and for the scourge of poverty to be kept at bay.
But will the new normal be exactly like the old one? That seems unlikely. For a good while we will have to keep up with sensible social distancing measures, certainly until a vaccine or an effective drug to treat coronavirus is produced.
YET the distancing that will be required on public transport and in other busy places can be counter-balanced by a new sense of social intimacy elsewhere. A two-metre gap doesn’t have to preclude friendly conversation.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to get on with me neighbours,” sang the Small Faces in the Sixties, before complaining that their style was being cramped by judgmental busy-bodies. And it is certainly true that most of us want our homes to remain castles of privacy.
But a happy balance must be struck. And for far too many of us the pendulum had moved way too far in the direction of atomised living and very little community interaction.
That, largely thanks to the brilliantly simple device of inviting us to pop outside and clap for the heroic carers of Britain at 8pm every Thursday, has changed now. It is a legacy of fellow feeling that we really ought not to squander.
‘A street full of people with busy lives is reborn as a community’