JULIE ETCHINGHAM

I’VE felt worried for my teenage boys during lockdown, as life’s little points of celebration and freedom slipped by.

When I met up with girlfriends, we all shared similar stories and worries.

So I was keen that we devote a Tonight programme to listening to kids’ experiences of lockdown, to give Generation Covid a voice.

In Leeds, Ayla, who’s 15, told me: “It’s like a knot sometimes in my head – thinking of friendships, GCSEs, exams.”

Phoebe, 19, from Blackpool, wept as she told how hard it had been not to be able to visit her gran in her care home.

Four teenagers in Tower Hamlets in East London had all lost friends and relatives, and had the extra burden of explaining the rules of lockdown to non-English-speaking older relatives.

We heard stories of older kids taking responsibility for home-schooling little brothers and sisters; of family rows in cramped homes, of fear for the future.

We’re hearing a lot from politicians about the economy, jobs and getting the country moving again. Our young generation deserves to be right up there on the list of their priorities.

It will be on their shoulders that Britain secures its future. We have to make sure they are strong enough.