Let’s do this together

My lockdown got off to an exciting g start with a lock-inin. lock-in. Sadly it wasn’t in a pub – but my local chemist.

When I got there an hour before closing yesterday to pick up a new inhaler, I was shocked to find a queue snaking all the way round the corner.

Social distancing makes queues look longer than they are but, put it this way, the chap in front of me said he’d started tutting and sighing heavily for at least an hour and expected to start foot-tapping soon.

I wondered why everyone was suddenly sick, and I didn’t have to wait long to find out as the pharmacist came out to serve people by loudly asking everyone what they wanted.

Several men left the queue, so I guess they needed treatment of a more intimate nature, while one lady took the opportunity to regale everybody with her painful bunions. Eventually we all got corralled inside so they could close the shop.

An hour later I got out of there with my inhaler – and an in-depth knowledge of all the different corn plasters available.

It made me think of Betty’s story today (see right) about how we’ve been comparing lockdown queues and restrictions with the hardships during the war.

But as we near Remembrance Sunday, it’s a salutory reminder that our current problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world compared to what our wartime generation lost.

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.