d

At the core must be those in the NHS, not only the doctors and nurses, but the support and administrative staff also. I am impressed when I get an evening call from one.

However, they could not have done their jobs without teachers teaching their children, shop workers providing their basic essentials, public transport staff getting them to work, refuse collectors taking care of their rubbish, the media keeping us informed and all those other workers, too numerous to mention, whose support was crucial.

Like the NHS, they did it because it was their job and did it without drama, but the importance of their contribution cannot be underestimated.

As in World War Two, it will have been ordinary fellow human beings putting themselves in danger, not by bullets and bombs, but the unseen deadly coronavirus.

Another group of unsung heroes were laboratory and research staff who worked to develop tests and when distributed analysed them – all absolutely key to our strategy of containing the pandemic – while other colleagues worked to develop vaccines.

Other heroes were those who volunteered to help be guinea pigs for the new vaccines, or provided life-saving plasma even though they had suffered the Covid-19 as well.

Volunteers, particularly those furloughed in first lockdown, did not feel sorry for themselves. They fetched and delivered prescriptions and food parcels amid numerous acts of random kindnesses to many self-isolating, vulnerable people.

In our care homes, many senior citizens, after previously surviving many threats and for some not least World War Two itself, found themselves isolated without relative support and frightened by deaths of fellow residents in worryingly large numbers.

Sadly not prioritised for hospital care, fortunately restored later, but not before too many becoming casualties.

When this pandemic is over, we will realise with gratitude that wars are often won by the sacrifices of the foot soldiers, rather than brilliance of generals .

We remember our fellow citizens doing their jobs and looking after their families while observing the most severest of restrictions, even though they must have been bemused by the regular changes in strategy and all kinds of complicated mixed messages .

It is these ordinary folk who performed in a extraordinary manner to ensure we survived to learn the lessons both individually and nationally.

These deserve our grateful thanks. They may not get the statues they deserve, but we know who they are and we will remember those who are one of us and helped us live through this unprecedented virus.

Thanks seems totally inadequate.