Sharon’s someone I’ve known a few years, I used to play football with her husband Mick. A lovely woman, kind, always upbeat, with a smile, Leeds born and bred, do anything for anybody. It’s probably why she’s so good at her job. Sharon works as a carer, not in a nursing home, but goes house to house, to see her ladies and gents as she calls them. They call her ‘their angel’. She takes her job seriously, always professional, but still on the minimum wage. Anyway, I saw her in Tescos the other day, she was having a right go at this bloke next to the cereals, “Keep your bloody distance. How many more times? I’m a key worker you know.” That wasn’t the Sharon I knew – angry, looking stressed. I thought, I bet the Covid measures must be getting to her. So, keeping my distance, I called to her. Sharon nodded, recognising me, but the brightness in her eyes was missing. She’d even lost weight. She said, “It’s dickheads like that, who think the virus doesn’t matter to them.” She went on, “This job was hard enough before the bloody virus came along. But now I’m not sleeping properly.”

I could see the pressure Sharon was under, to stay virus free and keep her family safe, while taking a risk every day with her clients, to make sure they didn’t catch Covid from her. I asked about Mick, and she said “He’s been furloughed, but he’s got the kids to look after, instead of their Nana.” She lightened and said that every evening after her shift has finished, she goes home and takes her work clothes off, and puts them straight into the washer, because they might carry the virus. She laughed, “Our Mick gets a cheap thrill, when he sees me stood there in’t kitchen in just me undies!” Now that’s the Sharon I remember.