Let’s draw on blitz spirit to build a more caring future

We will all have spent part of yesterday reflecting on what we were doing exactly 12 months previously. Few of us will ever forget what we did on the first day of the first national lockdown on March 23, 2020.

Without doubt no-one will forget how our lives changed in an instant and how we moved so apparently seamlessly from that old normal to a new normal and how that old normal now seems totally abnormal. The human psyche is amazing, is it not?

Of course, it is part of that human condition to look back. After all, our lives would be infinitely sadder without the ability to be nostalgic.

And naturally we should never forget the hundreds who have died and the thousands in this region who caught but somehow survived the coronavirus pandemic.

However, this grim anniversary none of us ever thought we would be marking must also be a time for looking forward with some hope.

Yes, we have vaccines. Yes, shops, pubs, restaurants and hotels might be about to open in the coming weeks. But we would like to think that out of the darkness might emerge something far better and long-lasting – a permanently caring community.

How ironic that the year of Covid-19 coincided with the

80th anniversary of the blitz on Portsmouth and the surrounding area – another time in our history of absolute terror but a time when our communities rallied, looked out for each other and cared.

The Dean of Portsmouth, the Very Rev Dr Anthony Cane, said as much yesterday when he referred to how the people of this area had worked together to pull each other through.

He is right. We know the indefatigable spirit of the people of this corner of Hampshire and we know they are capable of wonderful things.