Those of you who are fans of Only Fools and Horses will no doubt cast a wry smile when I mention Uncle Albert and his ‘during the war’ stories.
And right now, while we’re not at war (at least as far as we know it, providing you avoid the tinfoil hat brigade), we’re all amid our own phase of ‘during the war’ stories: tales of sacrifice, survivalism and derring-do as we as a community, a nation and a world pull together to face one of the biggest challenges we’ve ever encountered.
It’d be crass to compare the Covid-19 pandemic to a full-scale war of course, for while it brings with it its own level of tragedy and despair – and let’s not lose sight of that – for a large number of people it simply involves sitting at home in front of Netflix while the government pays eight-tenths of their wages.
At the same time, we don’t worry that our 21-year-old son or daughter may never get to enjoy the life ahead of them, have their legs blown off or the trauma that might bring to the rest of their family.
In other words, it could be a lot worse – although I’m human enough to recognise that for those families whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the coronavirus, that’s not much of a consolation.
What I have seen in recent weeks, though, has been a situation that has brought out both the best and worst in people… to read the rest of Big Mike’s column, download the latest digital edition of Car Dealer Magazine for free here and go to page 26
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