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#LastNormalPhoto: Social media users recall carefree moments before lockdown

On the one-year anniversary of the nation entering lockdown, the challenge #LastNormalPhoto has been trending.

By Emily Chudy, PA

As the country marks a milestone of one year since lockdown began in the UK, people have been taking to social media to share the last “normal” photo they took before having to hunker down last year.

On Twitter, the hashtag #LastNormalPhoto offered a flashback to the final moments of normality before national restrictions came in to place, with people remembering sporting events, pub lunches, and casual meetings with family and friends.

Author Helen Glynn-Jones shared a photo from a “packed” show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in early March 2020.

She told the PA news agency: “It was the Hertfordshire Schools Spectacular and the place was packed, huge crowds outside afterwards as everyone tried to find their kids.

“It does feel strange to look back on. A glimpse into the world as it was.”

Calum Taylor shared the moment a rainbow entered Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh during a rugby match, shortly before sports were no longer able to go ahead.

Some of the images were more foreboding.

Cyn Clagar’s last photos captured empty shelves at a Sainsbury’s in Wandsworth, as panic-buyers sought to fill their cupboards.

“The first realisation that things were most definitely not normal anymore,” she said on Twitter.

Celebrities were by no means exempt from the dramatic changes to our lives, and presenter Nick Knowles shared an image of himself at Cheltenham Races with former England rugby star Mike Tindall before socialising was banned.

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People across the UK have taken part in a minute’s silence to remember Covid-19 victims, marking one year since the first lockdown began.

The Prime Minister, who has offered his “sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones”, observed the silence privately.

The London Eye, Tate Britain, Blackpool Tower, the Scottish Parliament, Belfast City Hall and other buildings will be lit in yellow on Tuesday evening to mark the occasion.

It came on the day new figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a total of 149,117 people have had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate since the pandemic began.

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