‘Spontaneous acts of kindness’ are having a positive effect on the community local MP and Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart has stated.

In a post on his social media account this week, Mr. Hart said: A local doctor sent me this picture taken in Ludchurch, adding how much it meant to him and his colleagues striving away on the NHS front line in London. Such spontaneous acts of kindness (this time by a local farmer but there are thousands of similar examples) will have an enduring and positive effect on our area. Despite the best efforts of some in the media to create outrage and division, most people are decent, understanding, tolerant and compassionate. When this is all over we will celebrate that fact, and reflect that it has taken what Boris Johnson described today as “a fight we never picked against an enemy we still don’t entirely understand” to illustrate the way in which our world has changed and how much our leaders need people to bring solutions, not just problems.

It reminded me of an army friend who was helicoptered into the dark desert night in Gulf War 1 only to find that his platoon were in the wrong place, with the wrong kit and the wrong maps. As the rhythmic throb of their Chinook disappeared from earshot their young officer realised that all their careful planning had gone with it. With nowhere to turn, and no-one to blame, they faced some very bleak choices – leadership decisions that are still debated in military colleges to this day.

In other words, in times of crisis stuff goes wrong – often quite badly wrong. Some call it the ‘fog of war’. The test of leadership in those situations is how we adapt and resolve the issue. We can complain about it, or we can rectify it.

What’s more, its rare that the causes are down to malevolence or thoughtlessness. Its much more likely that they are down to exhausted people making serious decisions, at pace, in a rapidly changing situation.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we reach the end of week 3 in the COVID lockdown. Here in west Wales we are – at least for now – luckily just wide of the epicentre of this unwelcome disease. Yet the big questions about our handling of this situation dominate the news channels, especially around testing regimes and the provision of PPE. Whilst accountability is essential, so is context.

I’m in a lucky position, in some respects, to see the daily effort going into this. I know people in the NHS, local councils, health boards and yes, even politicians, who are wracked by the worry that there may be a front line worker somewhere who lacks the kit they really need, or a patient in desperate need of a ventilator which might be stuck on a plane from a distant supplier. They agonise that a single death in that scenario is a death too many, and wonder as they lie awake in the three or four hours they may have in bed if there was more they could have done. It’s one reason why the tedious habit of arguing with our Welsh Government colleagues in Cardiff have been largely put aside for now. It’s why we have opted for a four nation plan and why Labour’s health minister in Cardiff Vaughan Gethin was right to say that “we need each other to make this work”. It’s perhaps 75 years since the ‘United’ in UK has been this important.

And against this exhausting and uncertain backdrop is the tidal wave of goodwill, kindness and compassion, even humour, that our communities have demonstrated. From small acts of good neighbourliness to major UK brands helping the ‘covid effort’, there are so many rays of light. In so many cases people haven’t waited to be asked. They have made some masks, delivered some food, picked up the phone to a lonely neighbour or made sure their staff get paid whilst their shop, office or factory is closed. Celebrity culture has been enriched by the Joe Wicks’ of this world, as he brings the world a little happiness every morning. It’s why The Archers will air every day as it has for the last 70 years. Even the Queen reminded us of the wartime spirit that kept the nation going in 6 long years of conflict during her childhood. I spoke this morning, via zoom of course, with my 84-year-old mother, resolutely observing the Governments line, fortified by a supply of whisky sufficient to beat more than just coronavirus and especially caustic about the lingering element of our population who still think that a fishing trip from London to Tenby counts as essential travel!

And so it seems that we may yet have to endure a few more weeks of Netflix, to yearn for the beach or simply to get the kids back to school.

This week the swallows returned to Llanmill, the very same day they did last year. A tiny suggestion perhaps, that one day things will return to normal.