Coronavirus: Crawley couple praise ‘goodwill’ demonstrated by community during virus outbreak

Don Tombs and his wife Dodie Tombs moved to Crawley early last year.

The couple are still active, and have travelled the world - intending to go on a cruise at the end of this month, which has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

However, due to their ages, Mr and Mrs Tombs are preparing to self isolate, and turned to the Crawley community to ask for help.

They were impressed with the response they received, as around 82people reached out to offer their support, some of them families.

Mr Tombs said: “My wife and I are both over 80 years of age, so we are naturally very concerned about catching the virus.

“We have only lived in Tinsley Lane since January 2019, so we do not have any friends to call on and our son lives in London.

“We realise that the government will shortly either advise or even ban us from travelling outdoors, so we placed a short message in a local website called Nextdoor Three Bridges.

“I put the message online about 11.30am and by 12 noon we had around ten responses and they are still pouring in with offers of help, every few minutes a new one!

“I had asked the local Conservative Association what they were doing to help and they advised me to contact the local community, which is what we have done.

“So with this tremendous response from all over Crawley, people even offering to cycle here, I thought you should be aware of this goodwill that exists.

“The government isn’t doing anything.”

Mr Tombs owned a consultancy company, and Mrs Tombs taught tap dance as a hobby.

The couple are set to celebrate their 54th anniversary this year, and have one son who lives in London, and recently became engaged.

Mr Tombs said: “Many elderly people do not have access to the internet, or know how to use it, so why doesn’t Tesco offer to set up a country wide 70 plus home delivery service, delivering medicines, milk, bread, water, and a selection of food stuff, to local over 70s.

“This form could also be printed in papers.

“The goods would be delivered in sanitised plastic boxes with the cost being debited directly to a bank or credit card. The customer would not have to sign for the delivery, the delivery driver taking a photo of the boxes, proof of delivery.

“The form would allow for changes to be made, as time goes by.

“This would give Tesco a country wide boost of good will and help out all the old folk, like us.”