Crawley NHS worker praises community's spirit during difficult year

Hanah Mecrow, from Gossops Green, works as a trainer for new NHS staff, oversees the electronic patients' record system, and home schools her two daughters Wynter, six, and Willow, four.

The mother-of-two revealed her street had become more close-knit during lockdown, and that different forms of online communication have kept her abreast of goings on in and around her community.

Hanah said: "Everyone's got together a lot more I think.

"Even if you're walking to-and-from the car you would speak more to your neighbours than what I probably would've done.

"As a street, if you saw someone put the bins out you'd end up talking a lot longer than you usually would because you hadn't spoken to anyone else.

"I think that was really lovely, and within our street it was lovely with things like that.

"I live in Gossops Green, and we have something called Gossops Green neighbourhood service where people could write in.

"I think most of the street had joined that and now I've got loads of different ways of knowing what's going on in the area, whether it's through email or Facebook and things like that.

"I think that's really picked up, which was nice."