Like many people at 8pm on Thursdays I stand on my doorstep and applaud a million plus people, nearly all of which I do not know and will certainly never meet.

These people are the heroes of our current situation – when the time has come it is they who have stepped forward to defy an enemy that threatens the rest of us, in this instance not an invading army but a far less visible deadly virus.

This unlikely force putting themselves in harms` way are the NHS staff, care workers, refuse collectors, the post /delivery service, warehouse and manufacturing staff, supermarket workers, volunteer force and others of the emergency services to name but a few. (collectively the key workers)

Apart from helping to keep what little normality there can be in these strange times what does all this group of people have in common – they all near the bottom of the economic pyramid.

This pandemic should serve as a reality check, a chance to reflect and put priorities in order – our health, safety, what we eat and drink being essential to enable us to work and earn money, and this in turn allows us the enjoy our leisure time activities.

So if our leisure time enjoyment only comes as a result of key workers how come we reward those in sport, entertainment, their lawyers and agents (encouraged of course by an inept and corrupt financial system) so highly when they can only exist as a consequence of the hard work of the lowest paid.

When the also often overlooked scientists finally defeat this virus the best way to say thank you to the front line is to look again at our society – if we have a finite amount of money then it is up to us as a collective - through our elected representatives - to ultimately decide who gets what reward.

What would be better than a weekly round of applause would be to redress this imbalance in reward – if we do not make an effort to change things they will just go back to the bad old ways.

Peter Strait

Eastleigh