None of us could have imagined the year ahead when Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown, which began on March 23, 2020.

It was surreal and difficult to believe what we were hearing. ‘Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives’ became the mantra as the pandemic unfolded. Surely life couldn’t just come to an indefinite standstill. But it had.

We were all stunned into obedience and stayed at home, venturing out to join endless queues in addition to our daily hour of exercise.

Only essential shops could stay open – supermarkets, convenience stores, butchers, pharmacies and anywhere selling alcohol – and queues lined up outside each of these throughout the day. As panic buying set in, toilet roll, pasta and flour were like gold dust and items had to be rationed to stop stores from running out.

For once, the weather was exceptionally kind to us and the first three months of lockdown were spent basking in glorious sunshine, not something the UK is famous for, especially not Manchester. The Mike Crutchley Media laptop even caught a few rays on the patio.

It was frustrating waiting in line for everything, but I remember thinking how different it would have been if it was cold, wet and miserable, like it is today – one year on and there’s talk of snow. Would people queue patiently for more than an hour to get into a supermarket or pick up a prescription?

Initially, everyone was preoccupied with not catching the virus. We were hearing horror stories emerge about the lonely and agonising death suffered by patients. Fear of the unknown was very real. When the government’s medical and scientific advisers announced that 20,000 deaths in the first wave would be ‘a good result’, the scale of what we were dealing with started to dawn on everyone. This silent killer could wipe out people by the thousands, and, apart from locking ourselves away at home, there was nothing we could do about it.

The government reassured us that businesses and employees would be looked after financially and we knuckled down to observe lockdown, making the most of the good weather and decorating and improving our homes and gardens with money that would have been spend on 2020’s holidays.

When it became clear that we were in this for the long haul, Zoom and Microsoft Teams were suddenly the most important things on the planet. They helped keep businesses going and schools turned to them to keep children’s education ticking over.

Uncertainty is one of the biggest issues facing business and the only thing we knew for sure was that we didn’t know what was coming next. The furlough scheme was extended twice and grants and support packages were put together, but many businesses fell between the different stools. There were months when no money came in at all, and it was a case of constantly juggling finances to make ends meet. The most important thing, though, was to stay safe and healthy.

Food banks and community support came into their own and people whose jobs had disappeared overnight were joining the ranks of delivery firms or volunteering to help others.

After the first wave and restrictions started to lift, people started to go back to life as normal and talk of a vaccine seemed to give everyone something to hope for.

But as people started moving around freely again and schools returned in September, infection rates soared and so did the number of deaths. With winter approaching, the outlook was bleak. As the vaccine rollout continued at pace, with Britain leading the way as other countries cut off their political noses to spite their faces, our own death toll passed the 100,000 mark. In 366 days, our grim total has reached 126,284. Think about all those families who have lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters in horrendous circumstances. While we all long for the end of lockdown, this pandemic has scarred them for life.

Despite all our efforts to isolate and maintain social distance, there have been 4,307,304 people infected by the virus in the UK. Many have developed long-Covid and their lives will never be the same again.

Once the vaccine rollout is complete, there is plenty to look forward to, but we also need to remember how much we have lost, and the devastating price we have paid.

#OneYearOn