When I went into the village for a few things this morning the Salvation Army band was playing. They are part of the Christmas landscape in England, as much as tinsel, Santa and the annoying Christmas songs playing on repeat in every shop. And, like all expected things, they usually occupy only a small space in my consciousness. But this year I heard the music, saw winter sun glinting off silver instruments, the uniforms and the collection buckets with joyful awareness. Here was precious familiarity at the close of a year in which so much of the familiar is necessarily buried under Covid rules. The “normality” many people long to return to will not be coming back. This has been a traumatic year and trauma lays a demarcation line through your life, a distinct before and after. As we celebrated Christmas ...