WHAT’S YOUR GUILTY LOCKDOWN SECRET?

Answers on a postcard, please! When one artist invited people to send their anonymous Covid confessions, the results were wickedly funny – and poignant

Lots has been written this week about the one-year anniversary of lockdown. As individuals, families, friends, all of us have been struggling to make some sort of sense of what has been, in many ways, a social experiment on an unprecedented scale.

No doubt in years to come academics and scientists will pore over the data and a clear picture will emerge of the social, economic and psychological effects. For now it’s hard to tell. We are too close to the epicentre of the impact to see the true scale of the devastation.

All many of us know is that we feel different. Life has changed and, although many have learnt to adapt, many more have not. the anxieties and challenges of the past 12 months manifest themselves differently. For some the negative emotions are overwhelming — sadness, anger, loneliness, resentment and grief.

For others it has been a period of unexpected positivity, of growth and self- development. Many, including myself, just feel a bit numb, worn down by the relentlessness of it all, frustrated by the endless setbacks, perturbed by the inch-by-inch removal of our freedoms and the ever-encroaching scrutiny of the state.

one woman who has a better insight than many into this roller- coaster ride is Eleanor tattersfield. An artist and printer by trade (she sells handmade stationery from her shop Marby & Elm in North London), she decided to turn her pandemic into a creative project. the idea was to encourage people — friends, customers, followers on social media — to unburden their innermost thoughts and feelings on to an anonymous postcard.

she offered via her Instagram account, which has 10,400 followers, to send a blank, preaddressed postcard to anyone who asked. the cards are also available to download from her website ( marbyandelm.com).

the result is Lockdown secrets, a kind of ‘postcards from the edge’ of the pandemic, which she herself describes as ‘little pieces of someone’s soul’, adding: ‘It can be quite cathartic to write what you’ve kept inside all this time down on to a page and just send it away.’

As well as being a unique snapshot of a bewildering moment in time, it’s a collection of our deepest thoughts as humans, filled with wit, sincerity, honesty — and more than a hint of sadness. Here, we reveal these little insights into the human condition . . .

WHAT’S YOUR LOCKDOWN SECRET? Send an email with a photo of your postcard to femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk

An undiestatement: One woman was finding freedom from her usual dressing-up routine, left — while another, right, bristles with rage and takes sweet revenge on her idle husband

A running joke: So you can stop pretending that extra weight is down to weeks of uncut hair growth

Card sharps: Eleanor’s postcard collection

>> Irresistible splurges: The shops may be shut but online is the store that never closes — and we bet this customer’s delivery drivers are worn out Additional reporting: Libby Galvin

>> The wheel thing: You can’t get better than a fit tyre fitter, right, while others prefer something more exotic, below

Lockdown lust: Not a lot of social distancing in this affair, right — let’s hope they kept their masks on, and a rail passenger, left, indulges in a different form of cheating

All at sea: While some find love riding high on the ocean wave, right, all too many, left, simply sink to the depths of despair

Always read the small print: The familiar rainbow of love — but with a sting in the tail