Many people around the UK have been scrolling back through the photos on their phones to remind themselves where they were on May 2020, while staff at 10 Downing Street were gathering for what Boris Johnson insists was a work event but which is currently under investigation as a potential breach of lockdown rules.
Some have posted their pictures online. They reveal a life of tedium at best and outright tragedy at worst. Members of the public have spoken out about being forced to leave their relatives to die alone because lockdown rules prevented them from staying by their side. Others recall that they were taking tentative steps outside to see people from whom they’d been separated for months – but all the while maintaining social distance of several metres in compliance with the rules set by the government.
The UK was in something of a transition period at that time but was still living under heavy restrictions, two months into its first national lockdown. Before rules were relaxed on May 13, just a week before the key gathering in Downing Street, the public had not been allowed to leave their homes at all apart from to shop for essentials and do their daily exercise.
