Few positives can be found from the old year but Wells has seen a welcome revival of the good neighbourliness which previous generations took for granted with hundreds of volunteers coming forward to provide the vulnerable with shopping, prescriptions and other support.
Donations have flowed to charities such as the Wells Foodbank - who are now providing 6,400 meals a month compared with 768 in February - the Connect Centre, Heads Up and The Lawrence Centre.
Lets hope this goodwill lasts through 2021, which will not be an easy year, and becomes a positive legacy of the grim times of Covid.
For me an example of this positivity came when I was invited to Wells Cathedral School as mayor and spokesperson for the Wells Coronavirus Network to collect 238 Christmas cards made by their students for WCN’s volunteers to distribute among local care homes and charities for the vulnerable.
We have also seen clever ways found to celebrate the festive season without breaking the coronavirus rules.
The Wells-based Portraits bid for the Christmas No 1 with a brilliant rendition of Together in Electric Dreams, using a huge cast of singers and musicians who recorded their parts and sent them electronically to Jeremy Millington to pull together into a brilliant single played by Points West, ITV’s Good Morning programme and Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2.
Sadly the song did not reach No 1 but it put Wells on the map and raised money for the charities MIND and CRUSE.
Carol services were cancelled but the cathedral managed to hold a few with strict social distancing. I read a lesson from the pulpit at one.
In previous years Mayors of Wells have been known to attend 14 carol services but I was only able to go to two. The congregation was not allowed to sing, of course, but that was to their benefit in my case.
At my school singing was compulsory and firmly enforced. I was the only pupil told to keep my mouth shut as my singing was so dreadful.