We are certainly living in unusual times – no one alive today has ever seen anything like it.  The lives that we had a few weeks ago have been altered and so many freedoms we took for granted have been removed.  Covid-19 has impacted society and the world more than any illness in a long time.  In my Year 8 class this term, we learned about Elizabethan society and the plagues that affected people then.  A famous diarist, Samuel Pepys, wrote the following in his diary on 31 August 1665:

This demonstrates that, despite the distance of more than 400 years, society has dealt with this before; perhaps our luxuries have been curtailed, jobs have been lost but we have each other and the amazing ability to stay connected, despite Covid-19, thanks to the internet and phones and our wonderful community will be enhanced by all that we learn through this.

I’ve asked my English classes to keep a diary about this time; at the very least to remember the lessons we are learning, and will continue to learn; perhaps though, people will be reading these diaries hundreds of years from now.  People in the 1600s knew that the plague couldn’t take away the sense of family, friends and faith; perhaps we will focus on these truths again too.