From Strength to Strength

Having a large family, myself and my wife always knew that we could rely on our kids if ever we needed to, but we cannot believe how they have looked after myself and mum during this pandemic.

This pandemic has brought my family so close together, it’s unbelievable. Two of our sons live down south, we would get phone calls from them on a monthly basis. It is now weekly and is by FaceTime, which is great.

My wife and I live in a sheltered accommodation scheme which consists of twenty one-bedroomed bungalows. We also have a small community hall which we use three days a week, but due to the virus our landlord has had to close the hall until it is deemed safe to start using again.

What we have started doing in the Close is contacting each other by phone, text message, and email, so although we cannot use our community hall we are all keeping community spirit alive. If anything the virus has brought people in the Park Close area more closer together.

This bodes well for the future; I think people now realise how important community cohesion is. The good thing about the Park area of Westvale is that people now realise how strong the community spirit is in this area.

I would love to see this area of Kirkby go from strength to strength and people from other areas of Knowsley to hear about it and follow suit. Knowsley has, over the years, always been made to look a place of high unemployment, poor schools, and high poverty levels by central government. I have lived in Kirkby for just over fifty years and all my children (7) have good jobs and five own their own houses.

I think the virus has taught a lot of people how life can change in an instant and it’s on that note that I feel Knowsley will carry on going from strength to strength.