Cachella Smith
Live reporter

Support bubbles, PPE, social distancing, flattening the curve - phrases most of us hadn't heard of at the start of 2020 but which abruptly became part of our daily vocabulary.

We're almost five years on from the moment former Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued the order to "stay at home".

To mark the upcoming anniversary, you brought the stories to us. You told us what it was like to miss a loved one's funeral, to work as a key worker in healthcare and to try to manage the symptoms of long Covid.

We also heard about unusual birthday celebrations, virtual cruise trips and indoor camping.

For many however the experience is not over, as research continues into possible treatments for long Covid and the public inquiry into the government's response progresses.

One of our contributors, Hannah Brady, lost her Dad to Covid in May 2020. Although the lockdown was tough she told us she'd do it all again to save lives.

"We would go through the loneliness and pain of lockdown again in a heartbeat to save someone like Dad."

We'll bring this page to a close shortly - thank you for sticking with us today and thank you for sharing your stories.

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Supplied

Descending back upon the family home was a common phenomenon for many during the period of restrictions.

John Scott, 62, from Solihull, had his four adult children return home - he calls the time "very special", adding that it helped restore relationships. Without lockdown he would have never had his four children, then in their 20s, all back living at home together, he says.

Mike Halsall, 61, from Tunbridge Wells similarly had a busier household when his four children returned "from various universities".

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," he says.

For Peter Gaston, 42, from Lisburn, his family still have "lockdown days" - mimicking the time when they "shared more, laughed more, walked more [...] loved more without all the distractions of daily life".

Meanwhile, Nik Barratt, 56, from Leicester, recalls enjoying beers across the driveways with his neighbours every Saturday afternoon for 65 consecutive weeks, "regardless of the weather" - sometimes with umbrellas or torches.

They even made a pub sign on a chalkboard hanging from a neighbour's tree and had fun coming up with names.

Image source, Nik Barratt

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Kay Tucker

For Kay Tucker, 62, from Horsham, lockdown was beset by tragedy.

Five members of her family died in the span of five months in late 2020 and early 2021, including her mother, who had Alzheimer’s, and her husband, who was in hospital with lymphoma. “We had to wear PPE as we switched off his life support”, she says.

Kay had to organise both funerals, which she described as a “grotesque joke”. When your spouse dies, she says, “your absolute universe is turned upside down".

“It is completely and utterly horrific,” she continues. “I did become suicidal… I just wanted to be with my husband.”

Kay says that she had trauma counselling and got help from members of her church community, who brought meals to her door for six weeks.

She also got support from charities like Care For The Family, which still supports her now, four years later, and she’s in a WhatsApp group with five other widows who still exchange messages every day.

• If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line

Kris Bramwell

Image source, Eric Tame

“During lockdown I had to teach from home on Zoom,” 63-year-old maths teacher Eric Tame from Hull says.

Despite having never heard of Zoom before lockdown, Eric says he soon got to grips with it, and it wasn't long until the rock n' roll bug took over.

"While teaching I kept looking at this guitar I had which I hadn't played for 20 years. Eventually I picked it up and wrote a song called Lockdown Blues, which my pupils loved."

Since then Eric has written three albums, and released them on streaming service Spotify.

He says that he found teaching from home very stressful but is grateful "it pushed me to start playing my guitar again, a hobby I really enjoy."

"One day I may write a hit song," he confidentially tells us.

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Sarah Wood

Sarah Wood, 48, from Derby, had been diagnosed with breast cancer less than a week before the UK went into lockdown. She quickly went into strict isolation with her husband, daughter and mother in their half-finished self-built home.

“Our dream home became my hospital,” she says. Sarah had her first private chemotherapy session in hospital, then was told that it was too dangerous for her to come to hospital so she had at-home treatment every three weeks instead.

“That was terrifying as well” because she worried that the nurse could accidentally spread the virus.

When she saw news stories about people breaking lockdown, Sarah felt “so angry”, she says. “We couldn’t believe that other people were not taking it seriously.”

Steve Priest, from Manchester, and his partner were both diagnosed with cancer at the start of lockdown and moved in together so that they could take turns looking after each other. He said that after he came out of one surgery, he was an “absolute wreck” and his partner had to care for him despite having just had major surgery herself.

“We were trapped and there was nobody, there was no support network and it made it 10 times worse,” he says. “It was absolutely horrific.”

“You had people moaning about toilet rolls,” he remembers. “Are you for real?”

Grace Dean
BBC News

"We would go through the loneliness and pain of lockdown again in a heartbeat to save someone like Dad," Hannah Brady, 28, from Manchester says. Her Dad died of Covid in May 2020.

Despite the lockdown preventing hugs at his funeral and stopping them holding a wake, she says she would do it again if it meant saving lives.

Sue Stollery, 64, North Wales also faced restrictions while holding a funeral for her husband Terry, who died on 13 March 2020 - just 10 days before the UK entered lockdown.

Sue says she's been told by the funeral home that the cremation would happen regardless of lockdown restrictions: "That's quite hard to be told that you might not be able to attend your husband's funeral."

In the end, she was only able to invite nine other guests to his cremation, held on 27 March. "It was horrible, just awful," Sue says.

They had to sit apart during the ceremony, but when they went outside afterwards, "we did all hug, even though we weren't supposed to," she says.

Sue says that lockdown "made it harder to grieve", in part because she couldn't sit with her son, she says. She spent lockdown by herself in a flat, which she found "isolating".

Image source, Sue Stollery

Image source, UK COVID-19 INQUIRY/Reuters

We might be hitting the fifth anniversary of the first Coronavirus lockdown, but the inquiry into how the government dealt with the pandemic is still ongoing.

Launched by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in June 2022, the inquiry was set out to cover decision-making during the pandemic by the UK government, as well as the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

By the time it concludes, it will have heard from politicians, civil servants and health experts.

In July 2024, the inquiry's first report said the UK's flawed pandemic preparations had led to more deaths and greater economic damage than there should have been.

The inquiry is currently in its fifth module which concerns procurement. This module will end next week.

• For more: Head to our explainer on how the inquiry works

While some of us were able to stay at home to stay as safe as possible - others worked to keep our essential services, including healthcare, running.

Here are some images you may remember from the time:

Image source, Reuters

Image source, PA Media

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Lucy Breakwell & Gemma Sherlock
BBC News, Lancashire

Image source, Lucy Breakwell / BBC

Two mothers who gave birth during the coronavirus lockdown have spoken about how their children are now thriving as best friends despite being born during a "lonely and scary" time.

Victoria and Francesca have lived on the same street in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire, for more than 20 years.

But the pair found themselves forced apart when they had their children at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and unable to support each other during motherhood.

Now, five years on, the friends say their bond has helped their children overcome "loneliness" and cement a special friendship.

You can read more in our story.

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Laura Reed

Some new mothers spoke of the experience of giving birth alone during the pandemic, with their loved ones unable to stay with them in hospital.

Laura Reed, 43, from Basingstoke, had a planned C-section in April 2020. She describes the maternity unit as "eerily quiet" and says she felt "terrified" to be in hospital alone - her husband dropped her off with a suitcase and returned the next day to pick her up.

"I was shaking a lot. I was really scared and nervous," she says.

Neya Joshi, 33, from London, had an emergency C-section in May 2020. While her husband was able to accompany her on the labour ward, he couldn't stay with her on the recovery ward, she says.

After her surgery, she was numb from the waist down and she was on a drip, so she couldn't reach to comfort her baby who was crying in a cot next to her bed, she says. She was the only patient who stayed on the ward overnight, and "I was all alone just in this dark room with a screaming baby."

He struggled to feed and staff weren't helpful, she says. "I just felt so incompetent, so helpless," Neya reflects.

In the months that followed, she "just kept having flashbacks of the time on the postnatal ward, just constantly reliving the fear and the horror and just the desperation".

She was later diagnosed with PTSD and had therapy for about a year, she says - she's now using her experience to retrain as a postnatal doula.

Image source, Neya Joshi

Image source, Jacky Edwards

Jacky Edwards, from Glastonbury, came back to the NHS from retirement - and she "made the most" of Clap for Carers by coming out into her street wearing her wedding dress.

Edwards worked as a nurse in the intensive care units and tells Radio 5 Live she was among the most protected staff in the hospital.

"I had a young child at home so of course I was worried about bringing it home," she adds.

As for her outfit choice for Clap for Carers, she explains: "I’m not a very celebrated person.

"[Wearing my wedding dress] It was a tongue in cheek thing. I paraded up and down.

"My neighbours would leave wine on my doorstep!"

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Istvan Csajaghy

At the start of 2020, Istvan Csajaghy and his partner had decided to buy a four-person tent in the Christmas sales ready to take their two children camping in the summer.

But lockdown came instead. "I got very frustrated having this brand new tent, still in its original packaging, a beautiful spring coming, and all of us stuck in the flat," he says.

So the family pitched the tent in the living room of their flat in Edinburgh. It became somewhere for the children to play and the family to eat.

"It's not much, but it's funny how it managed to get us out of the lockdown mood, and it still felt like some sort of adventure," Istvan says. "And there we forgot about the troubles outside, and just camped indoors."

The family finally pitched their new tent on a campsite in July 2020."I can't even remember where we were," Istvan says. "I wonder if we just booked the first camping space we found, just for the joy of pitching our brand new tent outdoors?"

Your Voice, Your BBC News

Emma Fish, 53, from Atherstone, explains that lockdown provided the opportunity to consider seeking a formal diagnosis of autism for her son.

She writes that at the time, he was finding school "increasingly difficult" and experienced emotions including anger and stress.

"Whilst lockdown and learning from home was difficult, it gave him the opportunity to be himself, and to learn at his own pace, without the pressures of social contact and the sensory challenges presented by the school environment," she says.

"I believe that without lockdown our son would have had severe mental health difficulties."

His diagnosis means Emma has a better understanding of how to help her son moving forward.

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Laura Phipps

Women say the pandemic massively shaped their experiences of pregnancy and new motherhood.

Laura Phipps, 38, from Cambridge, had her first child in January 2020. Lockdown "was probably the loneliest time of my life", she says. "The days were so long."

She was one of many who had to get used to being a parent while cut off from conventional support systems. Though she had her husband, she missed out on spending time with her relatives and other loved ones.

"You just sit at home, WhatsApping the new mums who you knew were about five minutes away," she says. "You were just sitting spending most of your time on your own... They say it takes a village to raise a child, but there was no village in Covid."

She had to get breastfeeding support via Zoom call and show her GP her baby's Eczema over video call.

Laura says it was sad that her relatives couldn't see her baby's first milestones.

"The first smile, the first words, the first steps, no one saw that stuff," she says. "It just happened in our house."

Many of the experiences we've heard about so far today have been tough ones - key workers who experienced exhaustion, a parent who missed the chance to be with her daughter before she died, and those who were vulnerable and had to isolate themselves from their loved ones.

Others have told us about the lighter moments they looked for at a time when many were struggling with fear and uncertainty.

We've heard about two highly unusual birthday celebrations - Felix who was greeted with chalked pavement messages from neighbours during a walk on his fourth birthday, and Joyce who received a 90th birthday parade on the back of a truck through her local village.

Joyce has since passed away but her daughter Kirsty told us she "felt like a queen".

Elsewhere, Ian Gearing ended up babysitting fox cubs after the quietness of his village gave a local fox the confidence to leave them in his garden each day, while Carolyn Rowland treasured moments she could spend with her Dad watching Bargain Hunt before he died in 2023.

We've got plenty more anecdotes to come which you sent in via Your Voice, Your BBC News, so stay with us this afternoon.

Your Voice, Your BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

"Bitter" and "disillusioned" are the words nurse Erica, from Edinburgh, has used to describe her feelings towards the doctors she worked with at the time.

"I felt my safety was not taken into account," she explains.

Community palliative care nurse Katherine Lawson, 61, from London, is also critical of the protection available for key workers.

"Hideous clapping for heroes on Thursdays [...] Obscene money spent on useless PPE," she says.

For Fiona Thompson, 63, from Bournemouth, her decision to come back to the NHS from retirement was "right" but "came at a price".

"I witnessed things that I never expected to see [such as] the junior doctor on the phone explaining the likely prognosis to a family for their loved one."

While Anne, 53, in London, remembers crying in the bathroom for fear of the pace things were moving at. She describes a "quietness" in the ward with patients unable to talk and concerns that she might bring Covid back home.

Image source, PA Media

Parts of the NHS were "completely snowed under", an ambulance caller has told our colleagues at Radio 5 Live today.

Caroline adds that some people were scared of going to hospital for fear of getting sick.

"The calls that we were getting were quite distressing on a lot of occasions," she says, giving the example of a 14-year-old girl whose mum had diabetes and was struggling to breathe with Covid.

"Her dad was also struggling to breathe [and] had a brain tumour. She was there with her nine-year-old brother.

"At that time because they hadn't got to grips with how to treat [Covid] properly, it was very depressing - you were sat there thinking...what's going to happen."

Your Voice, Your BBC News

Image source, PA Media

Student paramedic James Lidington, who is based in Stevenage, says he was deployed to the NHS frontline "suddenly" when the lockdown was announced.

"PPE became our second skin, our faces marked by masks that couldn’t hide our exhaustion." he describes. "It was a baptism of fire, but it shaped me."

Gary Carey from Chipstead says "friendship" from colleagues kept him going - "Covid showed the best and the worst of people," he says.

For Michael Gomez, 37 from Beaconsfield, who worked on the hospital frontline, his wife's pregnancy led to the decision they should live separately to reduce risk.

"When I finally saw her again, she was in labour...After a tough few months, we were finally together again to welcome our baby boy."

Grace Dean
BBC News

As we've been reporting, people had varying experiences during lockdown - some which were impacted by their access to space and facilities.

Laura, 45, from Hammersmith had three children under the age of five during the pandemic.

"My memories of lockdown are just buried trauma of what it did to me and the children, being shut up in a small flat with no end in sight."

Meanwhile, Gary Davis, 57 from Oldham, lost work as an actor - as did his wife, who worked in wardrobes for the theatre industry. "There was no work at all," he says.

They both started working at a distribution warehouse doing long night shifts, often working six or seven days a week, for minimum wage.

It was "very, very tough work" and social distancing was "virtually impossible", he says. There was "little thanks" for the work he and his wife did, he says.

"Meanwhile we would see friends on social media sitting in their hot tubs drinking Prosecco," he adds.

After about nine months at the warehouse, they both switched to jobs in a mobile Covid testing unit.

Image source, Gary Davis

Grace Dean
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

With more time on everyone's hands, some people used the opportunity to pick up new hobbies.

Eva Charrington, 59, from Tonbridge, Kent, took up watercolour painting during the pandemic. She watched YouTube tutorials and painted scenes of her village.

Describing her new-found hobby, she says: “I was in a completely different world and I just completely forgot all the chaos and stress that was going around".

Meanwhile, the chance to explore new activities and grow closer to family members meant that Anoushka Patel, 17, from Leicester, felt "a sense of loss" when the lockdowns were over.

"Those quiet moments I'd had when the streets were silent, the air felt still and you could breathe in the fresh air rather than the traffic smog were suddenly gone," she says.

"The humdrum of urban life resumed, and I knew the momentary peace I'd felt wouldn't return."