IRELAND AND GREECE

JEAN KELLY, 43, a musician from Ireland living in South East London MARIA PIKNI, 45, a garment worker from Athens

Maria says Greece still hasn’t recovered from the financial crash. She was earning €1,500 a month before 2010, compared to just €700 now, and she says Covid has made things even worse.

Jean, 43, says all her concerts have been cancelled but she is still teaching piano and harp classes over Zoom.

Maria says: “I have a paper which says I am allowed to be outside my home from 7am to take the train and metro and I have to be back by 6pm. The second lockdown is much harder than the first. It is like we’re prisoners in our own house.”

She will be spending Christmas Day alone because of the risk of infecting her elderly mother.

Jean says: “I feel like we’ve been hit very hard by the pandemic and now Brexit. I didn’t vote for it and I was very sorry when it went through.

“It feels strange to be Irish in England for the first time. It felt like home before, but now I feel like a foreigner here.”