‘It’s inspiring to see heroes in the flesh’

GERALD Sinstadt ( Sentinel, September 29) makes a good point about the importance of young football fans getting to see their heroes play live, something current restrictions make impossible.

The same could be said for fans of live music, theatre and even those like me with an interest in politics.

There is something powerfully inspiring about seeing in the flesh performers you have previously admired from a distance.

I remember hearing the late Tony Benn speak at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference more than a decade ago.

The event took place at seven in the morning. Despite being well into his eighties, he spoke for 40 minutes without notes and then took questions.

What impressed me most was his passionate belief in democracy and the possibility for people to improve their lives through political organisation.

Had they been delivered via a video call his words would have been no less impassioned, but their impact would have been far less powerful.

What matters here isn’t the making of a treasured memory, important though such things are, it is the reminder it provides of something we knew all along but had forgotten until the current crisis began.

What we as human beings value most is contact with others and we are harmed when it is withdrawn.

Given the threat we face the restrictions that have forced us all apart are a necessary, though hopefully temporary imposition.

It is vital that we hear from Government in the shortest time possible a coherent and hopeful message about what a new normal is going to look like.

This matters not just to people who want to get back to watching live sport or music, it matters to everyone who values liberty and wants to be able to face the future without fear and uncertainty.

ADAM COLCLOUGH PENKHULL