Where did the Olympic spirit go?

IT’S ten years, almost to the week, since the very special summer of the London Olympics. I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot, particularly the opening ceremony.

I remember the excitement of seeing our island story, a spectacular social and industrial history, transformed and remixed by the mind of Danny Boyle into a stunning, rushing, compelling collision of images and sounds, feeling and music that I absolutely recognised myself in, and the people I knew.

This vortex of visions spun together the ordinary and extraordinary, high and pop culture, the madcap and profound, and the past, present and the future in the way everyday life here so often can and does. I grinned at Mr Bean, marvelled at the Queen arriving by parachute, sat awestruck at the Olympic rings being forged before my eyes, listened to the words of Shakespeare and Dizzee Rascal and cried when the flame’s burning petals rose into the night sky.

It was thrilling. It was inspiring. This was a story I was proud to be part of and wanted to continue contributing towards.

The momentum continued, for a time. Team GB excelled, created a spirit, and we ran with it (I literally did dash downstairs, only to just miss the 100m final on TV, after hearing the starting pistol on the bathroom radio).

But something has changed, slowed, stumbled.

We’re no longer in the Olympic Britain that the ceremony so brilliantly created. After a shaky, uncertain run-up, the Games got a grip on imaginations and created a feeling of possibility. Ten years on, simply nothing seems to work and, perhaps like you, I no long expect real help or good, straightforward service from anywhere or anyone – the NHS, trains, planes, energy companies, or the care home my mum now sits in. Tiny courtesies, good neighbourliness and anything hopeful all have to battle the loud, the casual, the contemptuous. The pandemic, the Brexit hangover, shrieking social media ... Whatever is creating the negative mood, I find myself feeling sorry for the next PM.

When I’m low, I can watch my London Olympics blu-ray, and wallow in the lost innocence of it all. But the stadium is a Camelot, a fairytale, a piece of history itself.

And it wasn’t meant to be like that at all.

■■At its best, sport still lights up lives and Mum, 93, is glued to the Women’s Euros, “amazed” it’s on telly. She was a player in her teens, for the Raleigh. Shorthand typist by day, tricky winger evenings and weekends. Loved to have seen her in action.