AT the time of the Downing Street garden party which the PM attended, Coun Jim Robbins was writing a weekly diary for the Adver about what life was like to work and home-school while keeping his family safe.

During the week of May 20 2020, he remarked on how nice it felt to go outside with his daughter and play golf for the first time in months after following the strict rules of the first lockdown.

While they were out and about, he picked up prescriptions for vulnerable neighbours who were shielding and dropped them off at their homes.

Speaking to the Adver yesterday, he added:”It’s bizarre to think that they were out enjoying the weather and doing whatever they wanted while we were making sacrifices.

“My wife is extremely critically vulnerable so I’m glad we got through it and she avoided catching Covid but it feels like there was one rule for the government and one rule for the public, which is frustrating.

“The worst thing about the apology, which was clearly written with lawyers in mind, is it felt so false. I don’t think Boris can do genuine apologies, he has misjudged the mood of the nation and lost the public’s trust.

“I often think of those who died and their loved ones who missed out on funerals or could not see them in care homes and hospitals, it makes me angry.”

Adver readers shared some of their experiences during the early months of the pandemic.

Tracey Boyd said: “I was in GWH, with end-stage liver disease. I spent six weeks in a side room, with no visitors.

“I had to receive the news, alone, that if I didn’t receive a transplant soon, I might not make it. At that point I needed my family around me.

“When I finally got the call I’d been waiting for, I had two minutes to see my husband, before being whisked off to Birmingham. I’m disgusted by the behaviour of those who were supposed to setting an example.”

Hayley Hayes-Partlett said: “Struggling with three kids off school and no support network, heavily pregnant, reading horror stories about potentially birthing alone (if there were complications) due to restrictions.

“Doing my shopping at 2am as it was the only time there wasn’t a two-hour long queue.”

Kylie Amanda added: “I was working on the front line as a home carer with limited PPE due to shortages, having my kids begging me not to go to work because they were scared I was going to catch it and die.”

Tanya Legg said: “I was home-schooling our son, staying away from family and doing as we were asked while those who asked us we partying.”

Victoria Colley: “I was furloughed, living alone, not seeing any friends or family or having physical contact with another soul for months.”