AND FINALLY Cry freedom as we spread our wings!

HOW strange it is to look back at last year’s Mail on April 11.

My essay for Easter Saturday was headlined, ‘They can’t lock down our hope this Easter’ — but little did any of us know that there were times when optimism would almost run out and the Queen’s powerfully uplifting promise to the nation, (‘better days will return’) sometimes felt sorely challenged.

Little did we know that neighbour would be encouraged to snitch on neighbour as fear was channelled into anger and frustration; that Covid ‘marshals’ would roam the streets; that our nation would plunge unbelievably far into terrifying debt.

That so many rainbows would be painted. And, most of all, that so many families would mourn.

Yet I was correct to write, ‘We put up with things for the sake of neighbours and strangers. We realise what we all share — and that it is far more important than what divides us.’

That was true, all the bad things were true, too — and yet we came through, and some of our attitudes even shifted. After all, some people welcomed the peace of empty roads and skies, while others realised they could escape from the hectic demands of commuting and find new priorities.

I tried to be optimistic: ‘We share the awareness that when it’s all over we will truly appreciate all the things we used to take for granted. Doesn’t a drink with friends in a pub garden or sauntering round the shops or taking the kids to the beach seem like the Promised Land right now?’

Well, that’s how people are feeling this week. Hooray!

Gradually we will spread our wings more and cry ‘freedom!’ I feel truly grateful that all the while brilliant scientists were beavering away to develop vaccines to make so many of us feel just that bit more secure — and hopeful, too.

The timing is perfect — since this festival is about renewal and the eternal promise that we can be ‘saved’.

So, clinging to hope, I wish you all a joyful Eastertide.

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.