Horsham District should not stop applauding our hospital heroes and care workers

I was awakened from an early evening doze by what sounded like a firework display in the distance.
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We live off the beaten track in West Sussex and the crackling noise of such celebrations often breezes across the neighbouring fields in spring and summer.

So it took a second for my brain to register the absurdity of this natural assumption.

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The lock-in occasioned by Covid-19 meant no such pyrotechnics were possible.

Celebrating our NHS heroesCelebrating our NHS heroes
Celebrating our NHS heroes

Then as realisation dawned, I leapt to my feet, opened the front door and added very humbly my own applause.

On Thursday at 8pm households across our proud nation gave thanks with a simple beating together of their palms for our care workers in the NHS and beyond.

Running newspapers from the dining room is not without its challenges - nor is deciding how you are going to trim your hair with an old pair of pinking shears found at the back of the button drawer.

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But all this pales into insignificance compared to the simply heroic work of our front line carers - in the NHS and working for our county council to support the most vulnerable.

These are professionals devoting unutterably long hours at enormous personal risk often with wholly inadequate protective clothing to help those struck down by this horrific virus.

So please don’t confine the clapping to one minute last Thursday.

Let’s keep the applause going - for our NHS workers and everyone in our local local authorities on the front line of care delivery.

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And don’t forget those keeping us fed, running our supermarkets and village shops, the refuse collectors, the energy workers. The small businesses whose livelihoods have been decimated but can only struggle on with our support.

To all of them we say a massive and on-going thank you.

Our #supportlocal campaign encourages us all to use local suppliers; our Heroes of the NHS echoes Thursday’s hoorah. We commit our support too to West Sussex County Council’s front line servants of the people.

With your help, week in and week out and as long as it takes, this newspaper and its website will say thank you to them all.

We could not be more appreciative of everything you are doing in Horsham, the South Downs and beyond on our behalf.