Saying thank you

Subject: Saying thank you.

Last night at 8 o'clock I went out into the street to join the people in Grace Gardens to clap and show my thanks to the NHS workers, the doctors and nurses who are risking their lives each day in this battle against the unseen, insidious enemy the Corona virus. From the self imposed security of our houses we offer our thanks to these modern day heroes who present themselves for duty at the hospital each day, risking their own lives initially the threat of contamination on their journey in on public transport and then, face to face to face with critically ill patients, they do what they can with limited resources.

It's a strange surreal moment to go out onto the street and begin to clap. Slowly others emerge and begin clapping, we look at each other sheepishly aware of the strange circumstances attached to the act of clapping when the object of your clapping isn't there to hear you. The Brits are naturally reticent people with their tribal reluctance to show outward emotion, where the term "stiff upper lip" was invented to described the act of keeping emotion in check at all times. People, my neighbours up and down the street have turned out twice now on Thursday 8 pm on the dot, doors opening men women and children emerging like moles from the sanctity of their warm nest.  Still well isolated the family groups self consciously wave perhaps to the family across the road but no street party, no mixing to say hi afterwards each family when the clapping ceases they turn and retreat through their front door, this social act of thanksgiving is over and the moment of togetherness  to say thanks, is at an end.
Perhaps it lacks the romance of the Italian balcony scene we saw on the television a few weeks ago with musicians and opera singers giving a magical display of camaraderie, acknowledging the gift of the medical workers with their own talent. The evening here from a temperature point of view is more chilly the people more phlegmatic, more in keeping with the temperament of the people who live on this island but the message  is no less real. Thank you for continuing to come to our aid not withstanding the swingeing cuts imposed over the last ten years by Downing Street, nor the scandalous delay in procuring the protective gear to make these workers safer.
The people living in Grace Garden can't do much to remedy the incompetence of government, (other than vote them out at the next election) but we can and do say thank you to the much pilloried NHS and count our lucky stars we don't live in the USA.