Today I went outside for the first time since a week last Saturday, had a gossip with my next door neighbour (she of the air vent) from a safe distance, then at eight o’clock we took up our frying pans and began banging them with wooden spoons.
The claps rippled, first from the end of the street, and as we took up our kitchen utensils, they washed past us, up storeys, into gardens, over walls, through opened doorways and opened windows, until there was noise from every direction. Whoops, whistles, claps, bangs, and lastly a hip hip hooray.
A Canadian woman walked towards my neighbour and I, and asked why we were clapping.
‘To show our appreciation for the NHS,’ we replied.
‘By making noise?’
‘By clapping them at 8pm as a thank you.’
‘Every night?’
‘No, just tonight.’
‘Well it should be every night!’
And raising both arms in a salute she walked back up to the junction.
And that my friends, is how folklore is born.
