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As the public banged their saucepans together on Thursday evenings to honour the NHS, those being honoured were under a pressure we could not fully appreciate.

In hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes, on A&E wards and in operating theatres, doctors and nurses were trying to save lives, while also dealing with a lack of PPE, understaffing, sickness and escalating deaths.

And they wrote about it all - in poems, prose, diary entries, small observations on the back of envelopes. We gather some of this testimony – thoughtful, moving, scared, despairing, hopeful and proud.

These pieces help chart the different phases of the pandemic. The calm before the storm, the first wave, the summer reprieve, the second wave, the vaccine rollout and then the ongoing trauma of long Covid.

There have been many different writing projects run for NHS staff in recent years. All with the aim of giving voice to the hopes and fears of frontline workers as they deal every day with illness and death – feelings brought into sharp relief during the pandemic.

Emergency department nurse and poet Piers Harrison-Reid interweaves the writings of fellow NHS workers with his own specially composed poem that is a testimony to this most extraordinary of times.

Featuring writings contributed by Dr. Damon Kamming, Beth Calverley, Daniel Griffith, Janis Burns, Debra Kroll and Dr Claudia Gore.

Covid Memories is inspired by Our National Health Stories, a national programme of artistic work made by thousands of NHS staff in 19 hospital trusts across England. Marking 75 years of the NHS and led by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, Our National Health Stories builds on the work already being done within the Trusts led by the National Arts in Hospitals Network and culminates with a finale performance in November 2023.

www.ournhstories.org.uk

Presented by Piers Harrison-Reid
Produced by Tom Woolfenden
A Loftus Media production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4

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