Sunderland Covid bereaved call for official remembrance day as Marie Curie holds one-minute silence

Covid-19 caused the biggest fall in life expectancy in England since World War II with over 200,000 UK deaths yet there remains no official day of remembrance.

End-of-life charity, Marie Curie, founded their own National Day of Reflection in 2021 calling for a united moment for the nation to remember those who have died and as a way to connect with and support those who are grieving.

Today is the third Marie Curie National Day of Reflection being held on the anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown with a one-minute silence held at Noon.

Events are being held in the region to mark the day including pebble painting, yellow balloons and a memory wall at the United Reform Church in Roker, Sunderland.

This will be followed by a candle lit vigil from 18:30.

Deborah Doyle helped organise the event in Sunderland, and talks about the importance of these remembrance events.

Meanwhile, Gateshead's Millennium Bridge will be lit yellow in support of the third UK National Day of Reflection.

It's a chance for families who lost loved ones to Covid to remember them.

Susie Crozier-Flint, 46, of Sunderland lost her father to Covid in March, 2020 and is an administrator for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK.

"During the pandemic we were alone and isolated. Marie Curie's National Day of Reflection is a way for our community to connect in our grief but the day is about all those who have lost loved ones."

Ms Flint believes the government should acknowledge the Covid-19 Bereaved with a specific day of remembrance.

She said: "It took two years after WW1 for the first Remembrance Day to take place. Here we are three years since the first Covid-19 deaths and there is still no official remembrance day for all the lives lost in the pandemic."

Britain has one of the highest pandemic death tolls in Europe and members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice Campaign group are fighting to ensure their loved ones will never be forgotten by calling for the UK government to introduce an official national day of remembrance for lives lost to Covid-19.

Ms Flint said: "Instead all we hear about is that we were the first country with a successful vaccine roll-out and the first country out of lockdown. Yet for every one Covid death at least eight others are affected by the loss - that's 1.6 million people expecting the government to acknowledge their loss.

"It's so important to make space for people bereaved during lockdowns, especially bereaved from Covid. We were part of this national tragedy, with so many mourning and restrictions not allowing us to grieve in traditional ways."

Ms Flint's father, Howard Crozier, caught Covid after being admitted to hospital in 2020 with a different illness.

Ms Flint went to visit her father but was told by hospital staff it was not safe to do so because another patient had tested positive with Covid-19. By the time Ms Flint was allowed to see her father, he was dying.

She said: "I had to wear full PPE and was only allowed to see my dad for ten minutes. His eyes were sunken, he was grey and very confused. My dad was gasping for breath."

Three years later, Ms Flint's grief remains very raw and she is also an administrator of the Sunderland Lost and Loved facebook page.

Ms Flint wanted her father to be cremated and laid to rest with her mother but the funeral was not able to be held until several weeks after her father's death and she was told only five people could attend.

Ms Flint describes the whole experience as a "surreal period."

She said: "As people were not allowed to go anywhere, I was terrified the police would stop me and tell me I couldn't go to the funeral. So I took all the funeral paperwork with me in my car on the way to the crematorium.

"The National Day of Reflection goes some way to acknowledging the collective grief of the Covid bereaved, but more needs to be done."There needs to be specific counselling for Covid bereaved as well as bereavement from other causes during lockdowns, including specialist care for grieving young people."Grief is somehow a taboo subject, but it affects all of us in the end. It's time to make space to talk about it."

Gavin and Stacey star, Larry Lamb, 75, reflected with GMB's Kate Garraway on the death of his brother, Wesley, in 2019.

The former Eastenders actor discussed his loss and remembered how he was able to lie in a bed next to his brother in a Newcastle Marie Curie hospice as they said their final goodbyes.

However, the Covid-19 bereaved were not able to do so and Mr Lamb described them as being "deprived" of those final moments with loved ones.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK attention is focused on the Covid-19 Public Inquiry which is examining how prepared the country was for the outbreak, its handling and lessons to be learned.

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