In the past year, in every part of the globe, millions of lives have been lost and personal worlds turned upside down. In the second of a three-part series, individuals tell their stories of gain, loss and adapting during lockdown

CLARE MULVANY
When I started homeschooling 15 years ago, it was like moving to a ­country I had never ­visited. We may not have set sail on the Mayflower, but I felt like a doughty pilgrim, battling the hazards of independence in return for the glittering promise of liberty. What I hadn’t anticipated was the quality of friendships that I would find there. We homeschoolers formed our own support bubbles before such things were even conceived of.

On Christmas 2019 we met up as usual with our friends for champagne cocktails and carol singing around the piano. It was to be our last big gathering in the pre-Covid age of innocence. A few weeks later, I was standing in that kitchen as one of our close friends, Luke, a specialist in respiratory medicine, read out texts from Milanese colleagues. They spoke of the rising death toll in Italian hospitals, and warned us of the coming storm. Outside, Londoners were still living normally. But this was the point at which our lives began to change.