Culture & communities

The light of faith has been so important this year, but that light has shown through in so many ways in our country; acts of kindness to strangers, reconnecting with neighbours, those on the frontline of fighting Covid-19.

Running a corner shop is not easy work, Huq’s usual day starts with a very early morning, to get the shop open for business by 7am, and finishes around midnight. He juggles unpacking deliveries and trips to the cash and carry between managing his team of staff and being a present, friendly face behind the counter.’

‘If I’m not challenging the injustices that I see then I’m part of the problem,’ says Begum. ‘I am not a passive person and I don’t want to be a passive person.’

‘My mother didn’t ever speak to me about it periods and found the whole subject matter of periods, and sex or anything like that very, very difficult to talk about. My first period was a very lonely sort of experience’.

Seeing a houseboat from the inside, being able to jump on board to feel the gentle, floating sway, and to be able to move your house whenever you want (quite literally) are things that many of us dream of.

‘Representation is so important,’ she says. ‘Seeing yourself on TV, on social media it creates confidence because you think, “there’s someone who looks like me doing all these things, and I can do this too.”’

Local photographer Jamie Sinclair captures how residents, businesses and organisations came together during the early days of lockdown.  Sinclair was

What makes this image unusual, and typical of Covid-19, is the singular plane spotted in the left hand of the photo. Detje says ‘they’re so rare now, compared to how many planes we would normally see’.