Looking forward with hope

A FESTIVE MESSAGE FROM AIRDRIE & SHOTTS MSP NEIL GRAY

I wanted to take a few minutes to wish all the people who live and work in the Airdrie and Shotts constituency a happy and healthy new year.

While we have been asked to limit contact with loved ones, it was a better Christmas this year than the one we faced 12 months ago.

I have been so heartened by the way that communities have rallied round each other in the past year, offering help with shopping, food, items of clothes and homewares to those in need.

Charities like Paul’s Parcels in Shotts and Diamonds in the Community in Airdrie, to name just two of so many fantastic groups of people, are a real credit to the resilience and generosity of Lanarkshire people.

Local businesses have really got behind the work-from-home guidance too, enabling their

employees to stay safe while continuing to offer the services that customers rely on, and I thank them for this.

So much of our thanks and appreciation must go to those wonderful, selfless people who work in our public services.

Whether they be doctors, nurses, auxiliary staff, bus and train drivers, nursery or school staff, refuse collectors or part of Airdrie and Shotts’amazing army of social care workers, I thank them all. I know that without these workers, we would not have got through the past year.

I understand that for many people, Covid has taken its toll on their lives and I want to offer my sincere condolences to anyone who has lost loved ones to this awful virus.

I hope that, with the vaccination process going really well, and folk abiding by the rules, next Christmas may be more like the ones we enjoyed before Covid-19.

The message of the festive season is hope in the face of adversity. It is a time for family and looking out for one another.

So, let’s look forward to the new year with a sense of hope and enjoy the festive period as safely as we can with the knowledge that things will get better.

Neil Gray MSP