The start of this year has echoes of Biblical proportions - bush fires that have been raging infernos, floods that could benefit from Noah’s Ark and now the horror of a previously unknown virus threatening the whole world.

Television news coverage can be a mixed blessing.

Being glued to the screen magnifies our fears as well as giving advice and information.

In 1939, it was the ‘wireless’ that kept the population in touch with the horrors that were threatening us from the other side of the Channel.

But spirits were kept up by the likes of Vera Lynn singing ‘There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover’ and it was, I believe, an offence to ‘spread alarm and despondency’.

There was certainly no panic buying of loo rolls.

Newspapers were cut into neat squares, each with a tiny hole through which a piece of string was threaded so they could be hung up, in all probability in an outside toilet.

The indomitable fighting spirit has always got us through life’s difficulties.

The uniform may be different for this latest battle against coronavirus as it is NHS staff who are on the front line.

I am sure the prayers of many will be with them.