Hope triumphs over adversity and messages of optimism
Vaccines, NHS applause, Captain Tom Moore’s fundraising, a footballer’s campaign for hungry children and a successful Scotland team. . . the events of 2020 that warmed the soul
It’s science that provides the biggest signs of hope for 2021
THE sign of hope had a codename: BNT162B2. Otherwise known as the PfizerBiontech vaccine. But there have been many other reasons to be positive this year. The brilliant acts of bravery and selflessness. The historic breakthroughs and achievements.
The people (and animals) that have made us laugh, the songs that have made us sing, the penalty shootouts that have made us cheer.
All kinds of stories from around the world that can remind us, at the end of 2020, of one comforting fact: it wasn’t all bad.
The breakthrough on the Covid vaccine came in November and within a few weeks, the UK had approved it for use. First to get it was 91-year-old Margaret Keenan from Coventry and her message for others was “go for it!” The second recipient was a slightly younger man (81) from Warwickshire, and his name – William Shakespeare – brought out the puns (is this a needle I see before me? the gentleman of corona, etc). Hundreds of thousands of people have since followed the example of Mr Shakespeare and Mrs Keenan and taken the vaccine.
Earlier in the year, people in lockdown were making their own signs of hope and appreciation. Every Thursday at 8pm, for two months, thousands stood on their doorsteps and applauded in appreciation of health workers. Rainbows also started to appear in the windows of houses: drawings, paintings, and collages created by children in a similar act of solidarity and gratitude. Hundreds of the pictures have since gone on show at the V&A under a title that sums it up beautifully: All Will Be Well.
Many people were prepared to go even further and show their appreciation in other ways, most famously a former British Army officer who began to walk laps of his garden in April. Captain Tom Moore’s initial aim was to raise £1,000 for the NHS, then £5,000, then £500,000. The final amount raised was
£32 million and later in the year, in her first public engagement after lockdown, the Queen made the 100-year-old captain a Sir.
The image of the captain making his way round his garden inspired others to complete similar feats. In Sutherland, 90-year-old Margaret Payne climbed the equivalent of Suilven (2,398ft) by going up and down her stairs at home. It took almost 300 trips over three months and she raised more than £347,000 for the NHS, Highland Hospice and RNLI. And a namesake of Captain Tom –
Tom Moore from Lochwinnoch – walked a marathon in his garden and raised more than £8,000 for hospices. There were many other similar acts of selflessness and the pictures of them walking, climbing, cycling, and running helped cheer us all up over the summer.
Many of us also took comfort from a source of happiness that, in Scotland, has sometimes been a source of pain too: the national football team. For 23 years, Scotland has failed to qualify for the finals of a major tournament and we had to beat Serbia to qualify for Euro 2020. It was looking good as well: we were two minutes away from a 1-0 win but an injury-time equaliser led to penalties. Could we do it? When David Marshall saved Mitrovic’s penalty, it was like the whole country was cheering. We now have a place in Group D with England to look forward to, as well as the start of our World Cup qualifying bid in March.
In a very different way, there was another reminder in 2020 of the power and influence of football when a remarkable 23-year-old Manchester United player brought about a series of Tory U-turns. Marcus Rashford grew up in poverty – his mother Melanie sometimes had to go without food so she could feed her kids – and Marcus got angry when he saw help for disadvantaged children being withdrawn by the UK Government. Not once, but twice, his determined campaigning forced the Government to change its mind and provide help to poor families during the school holidays. And Rashford had an inspiring message for them: “as long as they don’t have a voice, they will have mine”.
Elsewhere, it was sometimes hard to find positive signs in 2020, but even in the bleakest moments, there were pictures of hope. Like the image of the Black Lives Matter activist Patrick Hutchinson carrying a right-wing protester to safety during a rally in June. Or the picture of rescuers in the earthquake in Turkey in October: nearly four days after the quake hit, they pulled four-year-old Ayda Gezgin out of the rubble alive. And even
during the civil war in Yemen, there were glimmers of positivity. Six-year-old friends Ayaan Moosa and Mikaeel Ishaaq, from London, set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Yemen and inspired a donation from Angelina Jolie. In 2020, it’s often been children who have been the most reliable source of hope.
For a time, it was just as hard to find signs of hope in the US election. Donald Trump said he’d been cheated of victory and would go to court to get it, but Kamala Harris knew different. A video of the vice-presidential candidate speaking to Joe Biden on the phone after the election went viral. “We did it Joe!” she said, and what it meant was that she would become the first female, black, and
Indian-american Vice-president and part of one of the most diverse cabinets in US history. “It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back,” said Ms Harris. “Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Ready to stand up for our values.”
There were similar signs of progress in other parts of the world, sometimes in places where you would least expect it. Thailand approved the draft for a civil partnership bill, and the first gay marriage in Northern Ireland took place in February. Robyn Peoples, from Belfast, and Sharni Edwards, from Brighton, celebrated their wedding at a hotel in Carrickfergus and Ms Peoples said it was a remarkable sign of change. “Our love is personal but the law which said we couldn’t marry was political,” she said. “We are delighted that with our wedding, we can now say that those days are over.”
And what about the global picture in 2020? The World Health Organisation declared the outbreak of coronavirus an international public health emergency in January, and by March much of the world was locked down. But there were unexpected consequences for the planet itself. Levels of air pollution plummeted. Wild animals ventured into areas that are usually teeming with humans. One of the most delightful pictures of 2020 was the image of mountain goats exploring the empty streets of Llandudno in Wales.
And there were other signs of positive change for the planet. Fifty-five endangered blue whales were spotted by researchers in the Antarctic over 23 days, compared to just one sighting during the same period in 2018. The bee colonies that lived in Notre Dame cathedral, which had been thought destroyed by the calamitous fire, were found to have survived. And for the first time in 3,000 years, Tasmanian Devils were successfully reintroduced into a sanctuary in Australia.
Playing games or quizzes on our computers, or watching livestreamed cultural events, also became a vital link to the life we had before lockdown. Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti assembled a team of musicians to offer free music classes online. Bill Bailey scored a triumph for superior dad-dancing on Strictly Come Dancing. The summer’s book festivals, including Wigtown and Edinburgh, also moved online and the Scottish writer Douglas Stuart won the Booker for Shuggie Bain, his story of growing up in poverty in Glasgow in the 80s. Another inspiring online event was staged by Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house which played a concert to a room full of plants. The plants were then donated to health care workers.
Music, it has to be said, helped a lot of us get through 2020, and the top musical choice was disco. Kylie had a hit with her new discoinspired album and the most streamed album of 2020 was Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Perhaps it was because some of the lyrics seemed to have a special power in a year like this one, as well as a message of optimism. Listen to her singing Don’t Start Now: “Did the heartbreak change me? Maybe, but look at where I ended up.”
Which raises an obvious question: where have we ended up at the end of 2020? Maybe the best answer is that we’ve ended up placing our hope in science after a year in which it delivered for us in spectacular style. Not only was there a coronavirus vaccine this year, there was another victory against disease in August when Africa was declared free of wild polio. The declaration leaves Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only countries thought to still have the wild poliovirus, with vaccination efforts against the disease complicated by the political instability. Another positive story came in October when Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna became the first two women to share the Nobel Prize in chemistry, for developing the tools to edit the genetic code, DNA. Perhaps the message of 2020 will be: science wins in the end.
Which only leaves the question of 2021. What do we have to look forward to next year? Well, first of all, there’s lots of potential in the worlds of sport, art and culture. The International Olympic Committee remains committed to staging the games in Tokyo in the summer, even if it has to be in a very different form. The Scotland football team will play in the delayed Euro 2020 and launch its bid to play in the World Cup in 2022. And if you’re not into football but are into sit-coms set in New York, the Friends reunion is due to happen. And perhaps we will finally get to see that new James Bond film, which has already been delayed twice.
But in the end, it’s science that provides the biggest signs of hope for 2021, just as it did for 2020. First up, there will be the continued rollout of the covid vaccine, but science has other positive things to show us. In February,
Nasa’s Perseverance rover will make its final descent on to Mars. The objective will be to study the surface and discover more about the processes that created the Martian crust, but perhaps it will achieve something else as well. Perhaps the ingenuity and inventiveness will make us feel a little bit better. Perhaps a mission to one planet will lift the spirits of the people who live on another.