Let’s do this together YOUR COMMUNITY CORNER

Edited by SIOBHANMCNALLY

This is my 500th column since Do This Together first appeared on March 18, 2020, when – to quote that great 21st century philosophical movie, Bad Boys 2 – “S*** just got real”.

We knew it was bad when the prime minister Boris Johnson made his first national televised address on March 17, and drew parallels with the sacrifices the nation had to make during the last war, saying: “We are advising against all unnecessary contact – steps that are unprecedented since World War Two.”

Which was followed up days later on March 23, with the deadly serious instruction: “You must stay at home.”

It wasn’t quite: “I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

But we all knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

We baked banana bread, pulled hamstrings to the Body Coach, and made sure our neighbours had enough sourdough starter in the very likely event of a global meltdown or Ocado not delivering.

Whichever came first.

We rallied, gardened and clapped, that’s if you had the energy, because many of us – me included – went down with Covid in the first few months from the mothership.

One frightening Saturday night I even thought I’d have to go to hospital because I was finding it so difficult to breathe, but I eventually fell asleep sitting up, and the fever broke.

It took a year to fully recover from the physical effects of Covid, but the one thing that kept me going through it all was knowing that I had my Let’s Do This Together page to file everyday.

Ask any hack what their worst nightmare is, and it will be missing their deadline. But it was more than that – all your emails, letters and poems, etchings, dahlias, doggy snaps and even the dodgy parcels with purple handwriting containing CDS of Bon Jovi’s back catalogue have been the very best thing to have come out of a bad time.

And when things felt especially bleak and The

Dark Lord was unfavourably comparing my parenting skills to genocidal dictator Pol Pot, it was a welcome relief to take a trip down memory lane with your favourite school puddings or sweetie bags of everlasting gobstoppers.

If I’ve learned anything from my short(ish) time on this planet, it’s not in fact fluffy kitten memes that make us happy. It’s not even the madness of being in love. It’s the kindness of friends, it’s having something to be enthusiastic about every day, and sometimes it’s just a nice cup of tea and a smelly dog next to you in bed.

It’s hard to explain to a nihilistic young person that we are nothing without our stories and memories and the difference we make to other people’s lives.

But two years ago I took her to see the Pixar animation film Coco at the cinema, and although it was hard to hear the moving dialogue over my loud snotty sobs, even the sadness of souls in the Land of the Dead disappearing for ever because nobody remembered them any more affected The Dark Lord.

I think it was the last time she held my hand, and as we left the darkened room and I was brushing the millions of bits of popcorn off me despite swearing blind I hadn’t eaten any, she said: “You won’t ever forget me, Mummy, will you?”

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.