After the clapping came silence and cold indifference
From Scarborough to Southampton there were scenes of enthusiastic clapping on the doorstep.
It's true that, cheering as the images were, even at the time the show of gratitude disguised a multitude of problems.
As senior politicians hurried to get on the bandwagon, I had spoken to union reps concerned that their members had been left exposed by a dire shortage of PPE.
There were stories of vulnerable people - who should have been shielding - who felt pressured by employers into taking risks.
And I heard warnings that some workers, on zero hours contracts and unable to afford to self-isolate, were taking chances themselves.
What the pandemic should have done is lead to a major reassessment of just how we treat the people doing the most important jobs.
Because when HM Government hurriedly published the list of key workers - those roles deemed of the utmost importance to keeping the country going - it was startling how different it looked from the usual rolls of honour.
For years we'd heard ministers heap praise on the buccaneers and entrepreneurs and wealth creators.
But when it came down to it what we really needed was people to stack shelves, treat the sick, teach children and nurse the elderly.
While some on the list - the cardiac surgeons or senior council officers say - undoubtedly had salaries to match their responsibilities, millions clearly did not.
In fact the average annual wage of a key worker in the UK today is reckoned to be a little over £20,000 a year, with plenty scraping by on literally the smallest sum that can be paid by law.
Unfortunately hopes that coronavirus could have forced a reckoning have rapidly faded. The pay and conditions of key groups has no more improved on the back of the Covid than bankers' bonuses were curtailed following the financial crash.
Earlier this month I noticed a local hospice advertising a care worker vacancy on minimum wage. The same page suggested a senior role in the fundraising team would pay almost half as much again...
This is in the context of an ongoing crisis in trying to find enough people to enter the care profession, which has the dubious honour of being one of the toughest jobs going on some of the worst conditions imaginable. Late last year it was estimated there were, perhaps unsurprisingly, more than 100,000 vacancies across the sector.
A friend of a friend, who recently quit domiciliary care for a retail job, had no fixed hours, derisory sick pay, regularly had to cover at short notice and was barely able to cover her mileage. The gratitude and thanks of March 2020 seems very distant now.
In fact we've rapidly seen a return to politicians attempting to actively run down or scapegoat many of those lauded just two years ago.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid has only this month railed against the outdated working practices of the NHS. And he has already clashed with the likes of family doctors over process and policy.
These are the individuals that carried us through devastating Covid waves - often made so much worse by government inaction - and continue to buckle beneath the backlog of postponed procedures.
In his latest critique Mr Javid oddly ignores that his party has been in power over a decade, a period in which waiting times have soared, critical care beds have plummeted and even basic tasks like booking a GP appointment have become an ordeal.
Perhaps predictably the promise of modernisation is not accompanied by a commitment to any extra funding - which suggests life may only get tougher for an inevitably exhausted workforce.
We might expect that against this backdrop Labour would step up in solidarity with those who are struggling - not least with a cost of living crisis heaping even greater pressure on households.
But while a radical, or even rational, opposition would have framed Covid-19 as a chance for a fundamental rethink of how people are treated and what society values, Keir Starmer has crumpled.
When Coventry's bin workers went on strike in the winter, Mr Starmer positively revelled in the fact that the Labour-controlled council wasn't caving into their pay demands.
The fact that a party specifically set up as the political arm of the trade union movement is so willing to pick fights with members, if only to signal a new direction, raises serious questions about its purpose - or long-term future.
There has been similar cowardice over the imminent rail strike, with Starmer apparently paralysed by fear of being seen "in hock" to the RMT.
His Health Secretary Wes Streeting had offered stronger support in a Question Time appearance last week, only to reportedly apologise for his show of enthusiasm in a subsequent shadow cabinet meeting.
What we have then is both of Britain's major parties helping breathe life into the notion that people who empty dust bins or drive trains are already pretty well paid actually and should probably just shut up and get on with it.
It's for the public then to prove that we're willing to stand with those who steered us through the worst weeks and months of the Covid crisis.
We should never forget that crucial key workers document - the definitive list of those jobs that, when it came to it, we simply couldn't do without. Not the work of some sentimental socialist but civil servants quickly tasked with sorting out truly essential work at a time of crisis.
Many are the sort of roles we tend to dismiss as "unskilled" although they of course carry considerable responsibility. Driving a 26-tonne refuse lorry or a train service carrying hundreds of commuters is a not insignificant duty.
Wild claims about the wage bill for Coventry refuse workers reportedly fell well short of what people on the picket line typically picked up each month.
That said, if someone not turning up for work leaves stinking rubbish to pile up on the roadside or means that thousands can't travel to where they need to, then just maybe there's an argument they should earn more.
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