Hearts worked tirelessly during lockdown to make life more bearable for local residents and particularly the elderly and lonely and the good news is they will be continuing their work even when Covid had disappeared into the big virus hub in the sky.
Below are the words I wrote for an article in the Eastern Daily Press in July:
An initiative introduced to help people during lockdown is likely to become a permanent part of village life even when the threat from the virus is over.
Hethersett Hearts was initially founded as a community group to support South Norfolk Council in helping the elderly, vulnerable and those self-isolating during the pandemic.
The group continued to evolve and it is hoped to establish it as a permanent support group after the pandemic as an “integral part of the village.”
And the pledge from organisers is “Hethersett Hearts is here to stay and we want to help.”
The group will be looking to support families and individuals in the village and the local area who need help in their everyday lives.
This could include picking up shopping, posting mail, helping with chores, speaking on the telephone, putting weekly bins out, picking up prescriptions and urgent supplies and even providing contact details where people can get help on various worries and concerns.
Anyone interested in joining Hethersett Hearts or finding out more about the initiative can telephone 07716769124 or email [email protected]. The group also has a Facebook page.
* * *
Just for the record this is blog number 283 since I started when lockdown began to bite in March. At times I was writing two or three times a day but it has now calmed down to one blog a day. If you are new to my daily blogs and would like to read the earlier ones they are all available at www.peterowensteward.weebly.com.
I had tried on numerous occasions in the past to write a daily blog but had always given up after a few months. This time, however, I have managed to keep it going.
So what prompted the daily blogs? Well when lockdown began to really bite many people looked at the skills they had and how they could use them in the community.
So I decided that my contribution could be in keeping local people up to date with what was going on in the village and also to put on regular walks/strolls with hundreds of photographs. The response to what I was doing was just phenomenal. I had literally thousands of messages thanking me for my blogs and pieces on Facebook. It was quite humbling to think that in some small way I had helped people to get through lockdown.
My blogs were and are a mix of my own thoughts and pieces about my past but mainly pieces on Hethersett and its history. At the same time I continued to put together my monthly e-magazine Hethersett Herald. It all helped me to cope with lockdown and not being able to see or visit family members.
The same thing happened when I decided to write a daily diary or journal. I had lots of false starts when I would write for a few days and then just give up. Then on December 23rd, 1973, I started once again and this time, just like Forrest Gump running, I went on and on and on. And after 17,455 entries I'm still going.
My diary started when I was a young junior reporter on the Lowestoft Journal and has taken me through working as a journalist in Norwich, Cromer, Beccles, Long Eaton (Derbyshire), Belper (Derbyshire) and then back to Norwich as a sub editor and then a sports editor and then 15 years working for Norfolk Police. There were a few other jobs after leaving the police and now my life has gone full circle to my present situation where I am doing freelance work for Archant covering Hethersett for the Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News and Wymondham Mercury.
It seems to have been a long journey but every step of the way has been recorded, sometimes in great details and sometimes, when I have been tired, in just a few words. It has taken me through life-changing moments - new jobs, home moves, marriage, birth of two sons, children growing up and getting married, birth of grandchildren and so much more. It's all there in black and white (or more probably in blue pen).
The amazing thing is I have no memory of some of the things recorded. I recently decided to read some of my early entries for a period I spent as a feature writer on the Eastern Evening News. The diaries list the people I met, the stories I wrote but I had no recollection of many of them. And that for me is one of the important aspects of writing a diary. It helps you to not forget. Not to forget events, not to forget people, not to forget places and not to forget the things that have helped to make me the person I am (whatever that is).
Sometimes I think that writing a diary or blog is a futile act. I have almost 50 years of diaries/books. That's a lot of paper to store and what happens to it when I'm gone? That's something I have been thinking about recently. Who really wants 50 years of my ramblings? At times I have been really dissatisfied with my entries. Nothing other than puerile ramblings, probably a lot of moaning because that's where I vent my angst and, at times, entries written too quickly that are all about me and not about the environment or the world we live in. At times I wish the entries were more outward looking and less introverted and more about things that matter.
But I guess essentially my diaries are me - they mirror the changes in the seasons, the changes in my thought patterns. and somehow I wouldn't be without them and I certainly won't be stopping them.