Image source, Banksy

A Banksy painting depicting a young boy playing with a superhero nurse doll appeared in a foyer at Southampton General Hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.

Game Changer, by the anonymous graffiti artist, was delivered to the hospital in May 2020 with a note which said: "Thanks for all you're doing. I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if its only black and white."

It was hung near the emergency department and staff told the BBC at the time that it had helped boost morale.

The work raised more than £16m for an NHS charity when it was sold at auction in 2021.

One of the most heart-breaking aspects of the lockdown rules were the limits placed on attending funerals.

Many people were unable to hold services to say goodbye to their loved ones.

Funeral celebrant Dave Adcock conducted services throughout the pandemic.

He gave BBC Radio Solent’s Lucy Ambache an example of how a family decided which 10 members would attend one of his funerals.

Like many small business owners, Adie Callaghan saw her catering company's work for charities and high-profile clients dry up as soon as the lockdowns were ordered.

"The business disappeared in about three weeks. It was horrific," she said.

They turned to their small existing hamper delivery sideline service to save the business.

"Suddenly all these orders started coming through the website – it saved our bacon," she said.

Drone footage shot in May 2020 gave a unique view of all-but-deserted landmarks across the Thames Valley, including Oxford's dreaming spires, the normally busy streets of Reading and the deserted shops at Bicester Village.

Today we've been hearing from three women who were involved in the development of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine that helped save millions of lives.

They have been telling BBC South about the challenges they faced in 2020 that they so vividly remember.

You can see more from the women who worked at the Jenner Institute in Oxford during a special edition of BBC South Today on BBC One at 18:30 GMT and on BBC iPlayer.

Image source, Getty Images

With people told to work form home where possible, the lockdowns had a drastic impact on levels of use of public transport.

Train operators ran reduced timetables amid a collapse in demand on normally busy commuter routes, due to coronavirus restrictions.

Later in 2020, South Western Railway and Great Western Railway introduced a raft of cancellations blamed on high numbers of staff having to self-isolate.

With gyms, swimming pools and leisure centres shut, people had to look for new ways to keep fit safely during their permitted one form of exercise each day.

In April 2020, a GP, an etiquette expert and a microbiologist gave us advice on measures runners could take to limit the potential exposure to coronavirus.

For thousands of school pupils, home schooling and online learning suddenly became the norm.

Children of key workers were the only ones in schools for face-to-face learning.

After three months of lockdown learning through online platforms, some Year 10 and Year 12 pupils in England headed back to school in June 2020, under social distancing measures.

Here's how Swanmore College in Hampshire prepared to welcome pupils back.

In April 2020, Lee Nurse, 43, from Basingstoke became one of the first people in the UK to die from Covid-19, having caught the virus in the early stages of the pandemic.

His son Rilee, who was 18 at the time recalled: “As it got worse, I called 111 twice - but because it was still early in the pandemic, no one really seemed to know how to handle my dad and his condition.

“Having been admitted to hospital, my dad and I said we loved each other. They were the last words that we ever spoke to one another."

A keen cricketer, Lee’s teamates at Basingstoke cricket club were among hundreds of people who lined his funeral procession route to pay tribute.

Read more of Rilee’s story

Image source, PA Media

One of the most enduring images of the pandemic was the sight of unused BA aircraft lined up on the tarmac at Bournemouth airport.

Major airports around the UK were left almost empty as demand for air travel plummeted following the worldwide coronavirus outbreak.

Various travel bans caused airlines to massively scale back flights and more than 30 planes were parked up by BA at the Dorset airport.

Fiona Thompson, from Bournemouth, had already taken early retirement from her work as a hospital pharmacist just a few months before the pandemic hit.

But Fiona, then in her late 50s, said she knew she had to help, so she came back from retirement.

What shocked her was the "sheer number" of deaths. She said that because of social distancing, "you suddenly become aware that there are patients that have been on the ward who have unfortunately passed away and they've only ever been a name to you, they've never been a face".

Fiona has memories of trying to fix broken face masks, getting sore ears from where the straps rubbed, and taking Covid tests every morning.

She witnessed junior doctors giving relatives a "very poor prognosis for their loved ones" over the phone. "They were just tired and it was breaking their hearts."

Some of her relatives discouraged her from returning to work because of the risk of getting Covid, and Fiona said that she did feel guilty after both she and her husband got the virus in early 2021.

Despite catching the virus herself in early 2021, she said she made the right decision by returning to work.

"Whilst you can only ever be one person, at least you are one extra person," she added,Read more lockdown memories here.

What are your abiding memories of the Covid-19 lockdowns in the south of England?

How did the pandemic affect you, your family and your community?

Get in touch and share your thoughts - email south.today@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp on 0808 100 2240, external

BBC South Today comes live from the Jenner Institute in Oxford - the research centre that was at the centre of developing one of the vaccines that eventually made it possible to ease the lockdowns.

We’ll meet some of those whose lives were changed forever by the virus and look back at how all aspects of everyday life were affected by the restrictions introduced in March 2020. And we’ll meet the people who were able to create new opportunities for themselves out of the adversity of lockdown.

Watch live at 18:30 GMT on BBC One or on BBC iPlayer.

Deserted beaches, once gridlocked roads with no cars and high streets without shoppers - the south coast of England never looked so empty.

Drone footage shot in May 2020 showed a unique view of landmarks across Dorset, Hampshire and West Sussex.

Elderly residents in care homes were among the most vulnerable to the spreading coronavirus.

In April 2020, staff at Victoria House Care Home in Ryde on the Isle of Wight moved into tents to shield their vulnerable residents - aged between 82 and 103 - from the outbreak.

Nine of the 31 staff left their own families to isolate at the home, which had a policy of "no one in and no one out".

Strict new curbs on life in the UK to tackle the spread of coronavirus were announced on 24 March 2020 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

People were told to only leave home to exercise once a day, travel to and from work when it was "absolutely necessary", shop for essential items and fulfil any medical or care needs.

Shops selling non-essential goods were told to shut and gatherings in public of more than two people who do not live together would be prohibited.

Welcome to our live page looking back at the Covid-19 lockdowns which came into force five years ago.

As the global pandemic put pressure on the NHS like never before, the restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus utterly changed all aspects of our lives in the south of England - work, education, transport and leisure.

Wednesdays' BBC South Today comes live from the Jenner Institute in Oxford which was at the forefront of developing a vaccine which paved the way out of the crisis.