On Monday schools were due to go back. The BBC launched its education package; stars of stage, screen and football pitch will present TV programmes to help the nation’s children continue their education during lockdown while their parents are either furloughed, homeworking, isolating or at work (having discovered that a job previously regarded as lowly and underpaid is now ‘key’).

How timely. Research this week revealed that two thirds of nation’s children are yet to access online learning, and, surprise, surprise, the poorest and most disadvantaged are missing out; the privately educated are determined to get their money’s worth!

A friend teaching at a local primary school is worried about her charges; a third of them ‘at risk’ or needing special educational provision. She was relieved to discover that they would be able to attend school along with children of key workers. She is alarmed but unsurprised that few of them turn up.

Also on Monday, Tony Blair stated the obvious; the lockdown is having a disproportionately damaging effect on the poorest; damage that will not be undone when normal life resumes.

The realisation and rediscovery of community spirit, of common purpose, of neighbourhood responsibility is, of course, encouraging. But there are important lessons we also need to draw to mitigate long term damage; the realisation that ‘we haven’t had too much of experts’ but need them to make informed policies so they are more than simply politically expedient; the discovery that local authorities, services and social care cannot be run on a shoe string and need to be resourced if they are to be resilient, that charities provide services vital to our national life; that if it weren’t for our membership of the EC and the legacy of free movement, our health and social care services would have collapsed. The list goes on…

What are you reading during Lockdown? Probably not Vera Brittain’s moving and distressing account of her life as a First World War nurse, Testament of Youth (two TV dramas and recent film). In its sequel, Testament of Experience, Vera –an ardent pacifist – is equally distressed to discover that the peace which was expensively paid for through the lives of a generation of young men was recklessly squandered in the peace that followed; another war becoming inevitable.

It’s now abundantly clear that the poorest, the most vulnerable, the frail and those already disadvantaged paid the price of austerity; our education, health, care and cultural services tightened their belts whilst the wealthy amassed a greater share of our national wealth. The unseemly scramble for ventilators; the lack of PPE for those we applaud every Thursday, a consequence.

Pray God we emerge soon; that we will be able to mitigate some of the damage being wreaked on those we have systemically neglected; that, unlike our parents, we do not squander the peace when it comes.