JAN MOIR: The coronavirus sinners ‘n’ winners – we all know who you are! 

The lockdown is not going to end any time soon and I for one am profoundly grateful for that. 

Surely it would be too hasty and too rash to peel away now from the path of self-isolation and locked doors? 

With the number of deaths still terrifyingly high and heartfelt pleas from NHS workers for everyone to stay at home, we must all do our best to hold the lockdown line. It is hard, of course. 

And it is harder for some than for others. I’m thinking of parents who have to keep young children amused and entertained.   

Those sequestered at home with no access to outside space. 

The isolated elderly, who keenly feel the pain of family separation. The vulnerable, the ill, the confused. 

Those who are worried sick about their financial future or how we will recover — physically, emotionally and economically — once this is over. 

But we simply must persist: all of us. If not for ourselves, then at least for those workers putting themselves at risk for the comfort and safety of others. 

We owe it to them to keep out of harm’s way as much as possible; to be a tiny inspiration, not a fireball of contagion. 

It is particularly hard right now, just as this Eastertide blows in on a dizzying front of balmy weather and blue skies. 

Outside my window I can see the trees coming into leaf, and the air in London smells fresher and sweeter than at any time in the decades I have lived here. 

Outside is beckoning and tempting, yet simultaneously remote and more or less out of bounds. It is a torture. 

All of a sudden, the prospect of a sunny Bank Holiday weekend like this one seems as meaningless as the days of the week. 

I’ve been self-isolating alone for five weeks now and don’t know when I will see my loved ones again. 

Yet I consider myself incredibly lucky, in so many ways. To have lived my life in Britain during a time of prolonged peace and prosperity: that is already winning the global lottery. 

Most of us have grown up being able to do exactly as we please, within limits. To go where we want, do what we want, buy what we want instead of what we need. 

And if our preferred brand of baked beans or perfume or Chablis was not available today, then it would be back on the shelf tomorrow. 

Now things are different. It is only 144 days since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in China, but the world has changed beyond measure. Here in the UK we now can’t always get what we want. 

We have to queue, Soviet-style, just to buy bread. Incredible restrictions have been placed on our freedoms. 

Park benches have emergency tape on them so people can’t sit down and picnickers have been moved on from beaches and beauty spots. 

Would-be holidaymakers have been stopped by police on motorways and sent home. We have been denied our liberty — and we don’t like it. 

But if we want to protect the most vulnerable in society — the nurses and doctors, the bus drivers and shelf-stackers, the elderly and the ill — then we must stick together and do it. Of course, some of us are doing it better than others. 

Here are my Covid-19 Winners and Sinners so far… 

WINNERS 

1. Those doctors, nurses and medical staff who came out of retirement to help. There simply are no medals big enough for each and every one of you. 

2. And not forgetting those who signed up to join the N HS volunteer army. The Government wanted 250,000 but three times that number joined to help relieve pressure on the N HS, supporting 1.5 million people considered at risk. You are the very best of us. 

3. The Queen and her We’ll Meet Again speech. It made me cry and cheered me up at the same time. I also loved seeing her face being displayed on the electronic billboards at Piccadilly Circus. 

4. Special mention to out-of-work British Airways pilot Peter Login, who has a new job as a Tesco delivery driver. Having ‘hung up his keys’ to the cockpit as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, he is now delivering goods to self-isolators. 

5. To self-isolators everywhere, each and every one of us. This will all be over one day soon. But not yet, and thank goodness for that. 

SINNERS 

1. Those picnickers, sunbathers and barbecuers on the beach who have been moved on by the police. Go home, you covidiots! 

2. Airlines that charged customers ‘extortionate fees’ and high penalties to get home before the coronavirus lockdown. Plus those who have yet to refund customers for cancelled flights and holidays. 

3. Tycoons such as Philip Green and Richard Branson — both knights of the realm, give me strength — who want the government to pay some of their staff payroll instead of relying entirely on their own millions. They want bucket loads of cash to help to support their workforces. 

4. A reader tells me of a grocery shop in remote west Cornwall that put its prices up when the virus struck — in full knowledge that the elderly in the community had nowhere else to go for their groceries. £3.40 for a cabbage! The owners should be ashamed. 

5. Those For Whom The Rules Do Not Apply. Like Scottish Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, who was caught making repeated visits to her second home in Fife, after telling everyone else to stay at home. Maybe she was worried she’d left the iron on. Disgrace! 

Look out, it’s behind you 

The Battle of the Bookcases continues apace. Some readers have expressed concern about former MP Sir David Lidington, who beamed into the Newsnight studios on Monday from what could have been a prison cell.

‘No bookcase, no tastefully arranged furniture or art — just a bare lightbulb, an unrepaired hole in the ceiling and something unremarkable framed on the wall,’ emails a Mr Stevens. 

‘Is he holed up in pre1989 East Germany?’ 

And reader Rita Allen is worried about BBC political journalistNorman Smith. ‘ He’s got a Paddington Bear calendar. What does that say about him?’ she wonders. 

There has been much discussion of Michael Gove’s blue toile de jouy living-room curtains. Some say they look like a giant Doric column, others that they look like Stilton cheese.

I think they’re fine, but I’ll have to advise my colleague Mrs Gove that the problem with her curtains is they need to be lined if they are going to appear regularly on TV. If I had a sewing machine, I’d lend it to her. 

It’s just twice as nice

What do the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall have in common with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, and Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban? 

They have all made a success of their second marriages, that’s what. 

Photographs of Charles and Camilla, released this week for their 15th wedding anniversary, certainly sum up the joy of the successful second marriage. 

As a husband and wife, you are both older and wiser. You are more realistic about the hard work needed to maintain a good relationship than younger couples. 

Friendship and companionship is a big part of it — you can see that in the picture of Charles, Camilla and their little dogs — they all look so content together. 

Do you remember the fuss when it was announced that Charles and Camilla were to marry? What would she wear — she was no fashion plate. 

Plus, a divorcee in the Royal Family? Pass the smelling salts. But Camilla turned up looking wonderful, and she has endured with aplomb ever since. 

Partly because of her genuine love for her husband, but also because she has never tried to push her way into the limelight — unlike some onceroyal wives we know. 

Charles and Camilla have been through everything together, including Covid-19, but always made each other happy. 

The Prince of Wales would have withered as a single man — I bet he thanks his lucky stars every day that, because of her, he isn’t one. 

I’m concerned about the pop star Duffy, who has detailed on her social media a terrifying tale of being drugged, kidnapped, flown to a foreign country and repeatedly raped, then flown back again. 

Surely these incidents are a matter for the police, not a way of explaining to fans where she has been for the past few years? 

My lockdown week 

Things I did this week. Decided to do something with those two bolts of linen I bought in a sale in January. 

Thought about buying a sewing machine. Browsed sewing machines online. They are expensive! And also now computerised. 

Do I need quilting facilities, a top-loading bobbin, a see-through cover? Will I be sewing leather? Look love, I just want to make a couple of cushion covers, not roar around like Emma Peel in a catsuit. 

Didn’t buy a sewing machine. Spring- cleaned the bedrooms. Chatted on email with a confused male colleague about Mrs Hinch. He wants to know why she wipes her skirt – ing boards with Febreze. 

Couldn’t explain this to him, because no one can. Amazon are prioritising emergency items. Thanked them for sending out my much-needed wax strips so promptly. 

Gentlemen readers, do I hear you ask what I need wax strips for? 

Ladies, shall we tell them? To repair punctures in a candle, of course. 

Finally, I noticed that a swear-word colouring book for adults is a best – seller on Amazon. WHAT HAVE WE B ECOM E ?

Lessons in love and life from the indomitable Dame Vera 

Glad to see Dame Vera Lynn is still going strong at 103. 

I went to visit her in 2009, at her home on the South Downs, where she lives under skies once darkened by German planes on their way to bomb London. 

She was then but a girlish 92, and kept herself busy with hobbies including art and dressmaking. Ever resourceful, she once sewed herself a summer dress from four gingham tea towels in the days of rationing. 

Of course, we talked a lot about the war. ‘My dear, you just have to carry on,’ she said. 

‘It was an experience that was completely different from what we expected our lives to be. A lot of families suffered through it, but people also learned a lot. 

‘They learned to manage and they learned to share, and they learned to be neighbourly. I think everybody who went through the war came out of it a better person.’ 

Will we be able to say the same about ourselves, after this pandemic?