How the pandemic changed life forever on a UK street

The country entered lockdown five years ago this weekend. Colin Drury hears how, amid the suffering, ordinary people questioned their lives, and changed little things for the better

-  Colin Drury

It was a moment unprecedented in British history. Five years ago this weekend, as the then novel Covid-19 virus threatened to overwhelm UK hospitals, the entire country was placed into lockdown.

Nothing like it had ever happened before. Shops, schools, pubs, restaurants, nurseries, gyms, libraries, museums and leisure centres were all shut down, with Britons ordered to stay at home. Police were granted powers to fine anyone caught outside without good reason.

The action was taken to slow an illness that was both deadly and little understood. The expert consensus today is that, in those aims, it worked. Yet there is no doubt the lockdown itself irrevocably changed society in ways that were never predicted.

From ongoing issues around children’s mental health and poor school attendance to a seismic shift in the way we work – and a rise in pandemic pets – not a single person in the country has been left unaffected by that surreal period. We are all, in many ways, living in a post-Covid matrix.

Which brings us to Lydgate Hall Crescent, a suburban 40-house road in Sheffield where residents include doctors, builders, teachers and Tesco workers. Exactly 100 days into the coronavirus crisis – and then again a year later – The Independent visited this most average of English streets to speak to people there. They offered a snapshot of how the pandemic had upended normal life in the UK. Today, five years on, we return and ask for their reflections.