Lent Talks
BBC Radio 4

Lydia Tan was born sometime during last year’s Covid onset. Her father, Mark, is a Manchester-based intensive care doctor. This meant that the letter to her which began this year’s series of Lent Talks (24 February-31 March) brought together two detached but in the end ­complementary worlds. When the pandemic began, he had wondered whether he ought to come home after shifts or simply leave his wife, newborn daughter and her sister, Miriam, until it was safe to return. In the end he decided on a deep-cleansing strategy of after-work showers, changes of clothing and repeated hand-washings.